Professor Tucker has made fundamental contributions in the field of telecommunications over a period of 25 years. He has played a leadership role in telecommunications research, both in Australia and internationally, and was a corecipient of the 1997 Australia Prize for his contributions to telecommunications. In a series of pioneering research contributions, he developed a revolutionary microwave circuit approach to the analysis and design of semiconductor lasers for high-speed optical fibre telecommunications systems. This work overcame a critical bottleneck in the capacity of telecommunications systems and led to a new generation of broad-band networks.