The award was made for "his work on Photonic Crystal Fibres and their application to Super-Continuum Light Sources” at Photon 12 – the biennial conference in Optics & Photonics, where he gave a plenary lecture.
The meeting, hosted this year by Durham University, was attended by researchers from 25 countries.
Professor Knight said: “The University of Bath has a track record of generating world-leading research in the field of novel optical fibres, and this award is recognition of that strength. It is especially gratifying that the citation mentions the application of our fibres to super-continuum generation, which has become a commercial success story over the last few years.”