Stan Ovshinsky
Encyclopedia
Stanford R. Ovshinsky is an American inventor and scientist
who has been granted approximately 400 patents over the last fifty years, mostly in the areas of energy or information. Many of his inventions have had wide ranging applications. Among the most prominent are: an environmentally friendly nickel-metal hydride battery, which has been widely used in laptop computers, digital camera
s, cell phones, and electric
and hybrid cars; continuous web multi-junction flexible thin-film solar energy laminates and panel
s; flat screen liquid crystal display
s; rewritable CD and DVD
computer memories; hydrogen fuel cells; and nonvolatile phase-change electronic memories. Ovshinsky opened the scientific field of amorphous and disordered materials in the course of his research in the 1940s and 50s in neurophysiology
, neural disease, the nature of intelligence in mammals and machines, and cybernetics
. Amorphous silicon semiconductors have become the basis of many technologies and industries. Ovshinsky is also distinguished in being self-taught, without formal college or graduate training. Throughout his life, his love for science and his social convictions were the primary engines for his inventive work.
In 1960 Ovshinsky and his soon-to-be second wife, Iris Dibner
, founded Energy Conversion Laboratory in a storefront in Detroit, dedicating the laboratory to the solution of important societal problems using science and technology. Focusing on the critical areas of energy and information, their new company, reconstituted in 1964 as Energy Conversion Devices (ECD), went on to become a forefront invention and development laboratory whose products have built new industries, many of them aimed at making fossil fuel
obsolete. ECD continues (through joint ventures and license partners) to be a leading solar energy
and battery
production firm.
Roughly a year after Iris Ovshinsky's death in August 2006, Ovshinsky left ECD and established a new company, Ovshinsky Innovation LLC, devoted to developing the scientific basis for highly innovative and revolutionary energy and information technologies. In October 2007 he married Rosa Young, a physicist who had worked at ECD on numerous energy technologies including a hydrogen-powered hybrid car and on Ovshinsky’s vision of a hydrogen-based economy.
, then at the center of the American rubber industry. The elder son of working-class Jewish immigrant parents who escaped Eastern Europe
around 1905—Benjamin Ovshinsky from Lithuania
and Bertha Munitz from what is now Belarus
—Ovshinsky became active in social activities at an early age during the Great Depression
. His lifelong concern to better the lives of workers and minorities, as well as to advance culture and the interests of industry, derive largely from his father, who was a generous, liberal, and highly cultured activist. With his horse and wagon, and later his truck, Ben Ovshinsky made his living collecting metal scrap
from factories and foundries. Based on his father's example, and on teachings offered by the Akron Workmen's Circle, an organization mainly of Jewish immigrants who believed in social justice
, Stan Ovshinsky developed a deep commitment to social values, including labor rights
, civil rights
and civil liberties
.
in various local shops affiliated with the rubber industry. During the Second World War, he and his bride Norma Rifkin moved to Arizona
where Stan worked for a time in the tool room of a Goodyear plant in Litchfield, not far from Phoenix
. Returning to Akron
shortly before the end of the war, Ovshinsky eventually established his own machine company, Stanford Roberts, initially in a barn. There he developed and patented his first invention, the Benjamin Center Drive, named after his father. This unique automatic high-speed center drive lathe
had many important uses. After Ovshinsky sold his company to the New Britain Machine Company in Connecticut
, it was used to help solve the national crisis of making artillery shells in large enough volume for wartime needs during the Korean War
. Meanwhile Ovshinsky continued to develop his growing interest in human and machine intelligence, avidly studying the research literature on neurophysiology
, neurological disease, and cybernetics
, corresponding briefly with Norbert Wiener
.
as the director of research at the Hupp Motorcar Company. Continuing his work on intelligent machines he invented electric power steering, but Hupp’s president was opposed to completing the arrangements with General Motors
to utilize the product. Not long after that, Stan and his younger brother Herb Ovshinsky, a talented mechanical engineer, established a small company called General Automation in a Detroit storefront. There Stan continued his study of intelligent machines and embarked on early research and development of various energy and information technologies. At the same time began studying neurophysiology
and neurological diseases. On the basis of his early writings about nerve impulses and the nature of intelligence he was in June 1955 invited by Wayne Medical School to participate in pioneering experimental research on the mammalian cerebellum.
. Crossing scientific disciplines
that academics traditionally hold separate, including neurophysiology
and cybernetics
, Stan invented and Herb Ovshinsky helped build a mechanical model of a nerve cell, an amorphous thin-film switch they called the Ovitron. Stan patented the device and the brothers disclosed it publicly in 1959 in New York City. In an attempt to model the learning ability of nerve cells, which Stan recognized as deriving from the plasticity
of the cell's membrane, he drew on his knowledge of surfaces and materials to fashion very thin layers of amorphous material, thus pioneering the use of nanostructures. He created these layers by combining elements, especially from the Group 16 elements under oxygen
, known as chalcogenides, including sulphur, selenium
, and tellurium. He would continue to work with chalcogenides in his inventions for decades to come.
from Swarthmore College
, an MS in Biology
from the University of Michigan
, and a PhD in Biochemistry
from Boston University
. Continuing to work on his atomically designed chalcogenide materials, which Ovshinsky realized offer unique electronic physical mechanisms, Ovshinsky utilized chain structures, cross links, polymeric concepts, and divalent structural bonding with a huge number of unbounded lone pairs to achieve what is now referred to as the Ovshinsky Effect, “an effect that turns special types of glassy, thin films into semiconductors upon application of low voltage.” Applying this effect he built new types of electronic and optical switches, including his Ovonic Phase Change Memory and his Threshold Switch. The former would become the basis of his subsequent inventions of rewritable CDs and DVDs and other new computer technologies including his cognitive computer. While others working in the crystalline field were building devices based on bulk materials, Ovshinsky’s work in the 1960s and later continued to be based on thin films and nanostructures. Recognizing the significance of his results, Ovshinsky applied for a patent on June 21, 1961 and in 1962 made his first licensing pact on phase change memory.
, a co-inventor of the transistor
and codiscoverer of the BCS theory
of superconductivity, by this time a Nobel Laureate. Bardeen immediately recognized the importance of Ovshinsky’s result but his schedule did not permit him to visit ECL for five months. Stan replied, “We’ll be broke by then.” Instead Bardeen sent Hellmut Fritzsche
, a University of Chicago
physicist. Fritzsche became very positive in his support of Ovshinsky’s work and helped attract other scientists to the Ovshinsky laboratory. As Fritzsche and Brian Schwartz later wrote, “There is a mysterious quality in Ovshinsky’s persona that attracts people into his sphere, builds life long friendships and awakens deep respect and devotion. Meeting him leaves each person with a deep impression of his superior intellect, his self confidence, his compassion to improve society combined with his certainty that his vision can be realized. His enthusiasm is contagious. In his presence, you feel how exciting it would be to join him in his endeavors.” Among the many famous scientists who came regularly to ECD as friends or collaborators over the next years, were David Adler
, Bardeen, Arthur Bienenstock, Morrel Cohen, Kenichi Fukui
, William Lipscomb
, Sir Nevill Mott, Linus Pauling
, Isadore I. Rabi, Edward Teller
, David Turnbull
, Victor Weisskopf, and Robert R. Wilson
. Some joined as consultants or as members of the Board of Directors. Meanwhile, the ECD community developed a uniquely productive nonhierarchical multicultural and international culture reflecting Stan and Iris’ social values. In 1964, Stan and Iris changed the laboratory’s name to Energy Conversion Devices, at the time when the company moved to larger quarters in Troy, Michigan
.
The laboratory continued to develop electronic memories, batteries, and solar cells, reinvesting almost every penny of profit into the scientific study of a wide variety of problems, many of which later became the basis of lucrative industries, e.g., flat screen liquid crystal displays. In time license fees to ECD began to grow, especially when amorphous silicon was used to make solar cells “by the mile,” with an approach that originated from the non-silver photographic film work on which Ovshinsky had been working. It led to the bold approach of using the first continuous web photovoltaic machine, designed and built under Stan’s direction by Herb Ovshinsky and a small group in the machine division. Generations of machines later resulted in sufficient monies to build Ovshinsky’s objective of having a 30 megawatt machine rather than a 5 megawatt machine. Despite considerable skepticism toward the machine, it is now being cloned very successfully by ECD in new plants. ECD also gained profits from the nickel metal hydride batteries which were important for a time in laptop computers and continue to be important in hybrid gas-electric automobiles
.
. In the area of alternatives to fossil fuel, his pioneering work has caused many writers to refer to him as “the modern world’s most important energy visionary.”
, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
and the Engineering Society of Detroit
. Ovshinsky is also a member of the Director's Council at the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Michigan
. His awards include: the 2005 Innovation Award for Energy and the Environment by The Economist
; the American Solar Energy Society
Hoyt Clarke Hottel Award; the Karl W. Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit; the International Association for Hydrogen Energy Sir William Grove Award; 2007 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation, presented by Sigma Xi, the Research Society; the Frederick Douglass/Eugene V. Debs Award (2006); the Engineering Society of Detroit Lifetime Achievement Award (2008); Recipient of the Environmental Hall of Fame 2008 Award, Solar Thin Film Category, Father of Thin-Film Solar Energy; the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Presidential Citation in recognition of a long and outstanding record of pioneering accomplishments and service to the profession (2009); and the 2009 Thomas Midgley Award from the Detroit Section of the American Chemical Society.
He was named “Hero for the Planet" by TIME
magazine (1999), with Iris Ovshinsky Hero of Chemistry 2000 by the American Chemical Society
, and he was inducted into the 2005 Solar Hall of Fame.
In 1968, he received the Diesel Gold Medal presented by the German Inventors Association (Deutscher Erfinderverband), in recognition of his discovery of the semiconductor switching effect in disordered and amorphous materials.
On December 11, 2010 Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering degree from Kettering University
, Flint, Michigan
.
On May 1, 2010 Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from University of Michigan
, Ann Arbor, Michigan
.
On May 7, 2009, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Science from Wayne State University
, Detroit, Michigan
.
On May 16, 2009, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology
, Chicago, Illinois.
On June 30, 2009, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Ovidius University
, Constanţa
, Romania
.
On May 18, 2008, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from New York Institute of Technology
, Old Westbury, New York.
On May 8, 2007, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Kean University
, Union, New Jersey.
as well as in parts 1 and 3 of the episode "Hydrogen Hopes" of Alan Alda
’s television series Scientific American Frontiers
. The website of Scientific American Frontiers makes "Hydrogen Hopes" available for viewing at no charge, as well as the text of an interview with Stan and Iris Ovshinsky.http://www.pbs.org/saf/1506/ Ovshinsky was profiled as “Japan’s American Genius” in the PBS series NOVA
(October 1987).
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
who has been granted approximately 400 patents over the last fifty years, mostly in the areas of energy or information. Many of his inventions have had wide ranging applications. Among the most prominent are: an environmentally friendly nickel-metal hydride battery, which has been widely used in laptop computers, digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
s, cell phones, and electric
Electric car
An electric car is an automobile which is propelled by electric motor, using electrical energy stored in batteries or another energy storage device. Electric cars were popular in the late-19th century and early 20th century, until advances in internal combustion engine technology and mass...
and hybrid cars; continuous web multi-junction flexible thin-film solar energy laminates and panel
Photovoltaics
Photovoltaics is a method of generating electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity using semiconductors that exhibit the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic power generation employs solar panels composed of a number of solar cells containing a photovoltaic material...
s; flat screen liquid crystal display
Liquid crystal display
A liquid crystal display is a flat panel display, electronic visual display, or video display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals . LCs do not emit light directly....
s; rewritable CD and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
computer memories; hydrogen fuel cells; and nonvolatile phase-change electronic memories. Ovshinsky opened the scientific field of amorphous and disordered materials in the course of his research in the 1940s and 50s in neurophysiology
Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function...
, neural disease, the nature of intelligence in mammals and machines, and cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
. Amorphous silicon semiconductors have become the basis of many technologies and industries. Ovshinsky is also distinguished in being self-taught, without formal college or graduate training. Throughout his life, his love for science and his social convictions were the primary engines for his inventive work.
In 1960 Ovshinsky and his soon-to-be second wife, Iris Dibner
Iris M. Ovshinsky
Iris M. Ovshinsky was the co-founder of ECD Ovonics with her husband Stanford R. Ovshinsky, and served as Vice President from its founding in 1960 until her death.Born Iris L...
, founded Energy Conversion Laboratory in a storefront in Detroit, dedicating the laboratory to the solution of important societal problems using science and technology. Focusing on the critical areas of energy and information, their new company, reconstituted in 1964 as Energy Conversion Devices (ECD), went on to become a forefront invention and development laboratory whose products have built new industries, many of them aimed at making fossil fuel
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
obsolete. ECD continues (through joint ventures and license partners) to be a leading solar energy
Solar power
Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available...
and battery
Battery (electricity)
An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...
production firm.
Roughly a year after Iris Ovshinsky's death in August 2006, Ovshinsky left ECD and established a new company, Ovshinsky Innovation LLC, devoted to developing the scientific basis for highly innovative and revolutionary energy and information technologies. In October 2007 he married Rosa Young, a physicist who had worked at ECD on numerous energy technologies including a hydrogen-powered hybrid car and on Ovshinsky’s vision of a hydrogen-based economy.
Early life
Ovshinsky was born and grew up in the industrial town of Akron, OhioAkron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
, then at the center of the American rubber industry. The elder son of working-class Jewish immigrant parents who escaped Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
around 1905—Benjamin Ovshinsky from Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
and Bertha Munitz from what is now Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
—Ovshinsky became active in social activities at an early age during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. His lifelong concern to better the lives of workers and minorities, as well as to advance culture and the interests of industry, derive largely from his father, who was a generous, liberal, and highly cultured activist. With his horse and wagon, and later his truck, Ben Ovshinsky made his living collecting metal scrap
Scrap Metal
Scrap Metal were a band from Broome, Western Australia who played rock music with elements of country and reggae. The members had Aboriginal, Irish, Filipino, French, Chinese, Scottish, Indonesian and Japanese heritage. The band toured nationally as part of the Bran Nue Dae musical and with...
from factories and foundries. Based on his father's example, and on teachings offered by the Akron Workmen's Circle, an organization mainly of Jewish immigrants who believed in social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
, Stan Ovshinsky developed a deep commitment to social values, including labor rights
Labor rights
Labor rights or workers' rights are a group of legal rights and claimed human rights having to do with labor relations between workers and their employers, usually obtained under labor and employment law. In general, these rights' debates have to do with negotiating workers' pay, benefits, and safe...
, civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
and civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
.
Work as a machinist and the Benjamin Center Drive
Before graduating from high school in June 1941, he worked as a tool maker and machinistMachinist
A machinist is a person who uses machine tools to make or modify parts, primarily metal parts, a process known as machining. This is accomplished by using machine tools to cut away excess material much as a woodcarver cuts away excess wood to produce his work. In addition to metal, the parts may...
in various local shops affiliated with the rubber industry. During the Second World War, he and his bride Norma Rifkin moved to Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
where Stan worked for a time in the tool room of a Goodyear plant in Litchfield, not far from Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
. Returning to Akron
Akron
-Settlements:Canada* Akron, OntarioSouth Africa* Akron, South AfricaUnited States* Akron, Alabama* Akron, Colorado* Akron, Indiana* Akron, Iowa* Akron, Michigan* Akron, New York* Akron, Pennsylvania* Akron, West Virginia* Akron Township, Illinois...
shortly before the end of the war, Ovshinsky eventually established his own machine company, Stanford Roberts, initially in a barn. There he developed and patented his first invention, the Benjamin Center Drive, named after his father. This unique automatic high-speed center drive lathe
Lathe
A lathe is a machine tool which rotates the workpiece on its axis to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object which has symmetry about an axis of rotation.Lathes are used in woodturning,...
had many important uses. After Ovshinsky sold his company to the New Britain Machine Company in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, it was used to help solve the national crisis of making artillery shells in large enough volume for wartime needs during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. Meanwhile Ovshinsky continued to develop his growing interest in human and machine intelligence, avidly studying the research literature on neurophysiology
Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function...
, neurological disease, and cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
, corresponding briefly with Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
.
Intelligent machines
In 1951, Ovshinsky accepted an offer to move to Detroit and work in the automotive industryAutomotive industry
The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells motor vehicles, and is one of the world's most important economic sectors by revenue....
as the director of research at the Hupp Motorcar Company. Continuing his work on intelligent machines he invented electric power steering, but Hupp’s president was opposed to completing the arrangements with General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
to utilize the product. Not long after that, Stan and his younger brother Herb Ovshinsky, a talented mechanical engineer, established a small company called General Automation in a Detroit storefront. There Stan continued his study of intelligent machines and embarked on early research and development of various energy and information technologies. At the same time began studying neurophysiology
Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function...
and neurological diseases. On the basis of his early writings about nerve impulses and the nature of intelligence he was in June 1955 invited by Wayne Medical School to participate in pioneering experimental research on the mammalian cerebellum.
The Ovitron
By the late 1950's, working at General Automation, Ovshinsky brought together these disparate studies in an inventionInvention
An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...
. Crossing scientific disciplines
Academic discipline
An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined , and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to...
that academics traditionally hold separate, including neurophysiology
Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function...
and cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
, Stan invented and Herb Ovshinsky helped build a mechanical model of a nerve cell, an amorphous thin-film switch they called the Ovitron. Stan patented the device and the brothers disclosed it publicly in 1959 in New York City. In an attempt to model the learning ability of nerve cells, which Stan recognized as deriving from the plasticity
Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity is a non-specific neuroscience term referring to the ability of the brain and nervous system in all species to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. Plasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes involved in...
of the cell's membrane, he drew on his knowledge of surfaces and materials to fashion very thin layers of amorphous material, thus pioneering the use of nanostructures. He created these layers by combining elements, especially from the Group 16 elements under oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
, known as chalcogenides, including sulphur, selenium
Selenium
Selenium is a chemical element with atomic number 34, chemical symbol Se, and an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, whose properties are intermediate between those of adjacent chalcogen elements sulfur and tellurium...
, and tellurium. He would continue to work with chalcogenides in his inventions for decades to come.
Energy Conversion Laboratory
On January 1, 1960, Ovshinsky and Iris Miroy Dibner, whom Stan married soon after his divorce from Norma Rifkin, founded Energy Conversion Laboratory to develop Stan’s inventions in the interest of solving societal problems, especially those they identified in the areas of information and energy, for example, pollution and wars over oil. Iris had a BA in ZoologyZoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
from Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
, an MS in Biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, and a PhD in Biochemistry
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
from Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
. Continuing to work on his atomically designed chalcogenide materials, which Ovshinsky realized offer unique electronic physical mechanisms, Ovshinsky utilized chain structures, cross links, polymeric concepts, and divalent structural bonding with a huge number of unbounded lone pairs to achieve what is now referred to as the Ovshinsky Effect, “an effect that turns special types of glassy, thin films into semiconductors upon application of low voltage.” Applying this effect he built new types of electronic and optical switches, including his Ovonic Phase Change Memory and his Threshold Switch. The former would become the basis of his subsequent inventions of rewritable CDs and DVDs and other new computer technologies including his cognitive computer. While others working in the crystalline field were building devices based on bulk materials, Ovshinsky’s work in the 1960s and later continued to be based on thin films and nanostructures. Recognizing the significance of his results, Ovshinsky applied for a patent on June 21, 1961 and in 1962 made his first licensing pact on phase change memory.
Energy conversion devices
By the spring of 1963, the Ovshinskys had exhausted the savings with which they had initially funded ECL. Before seeking public funding, Stan wanted validation of the importance of his work from a well-recognized scientist. He telephoned John BardeenJohn Bardeen
John Bardeen was an American physicist and electrical engineer, the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a...
, a co-inventor of the transistor
Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...
and codiscoverer of the BCS theory
BCS theory
BCS theory — proposed by Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer in 1957 — is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since its discovery in 1911. The theory describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a "condensation" of pairs of electrons into a boson-like state...
of superconductivity, by this time a Nobel Laureate. Bardeen immediately recognized the importance of Ovshinsky’s result but his schedule did not permit him to visit ECL for five months. Stan replied, “We’ll be broke by then.” Instead Bardeen sent Hellmut Fritzsche
Hellmut Fritzsche
Hellmut Fritzsche is a German-American solid-state physicist.After receiving his Diplom from the University of Göttingen in 1952, Fritzsche went to the USA. In 1952 he earned his PhD from Purdue University, where he in the same year became an instructor and in 1955 assistant professor...
, a University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
physicist. Fritzsche became very positive in his support of Ovshinsky’s work and helped attract other scientists to the Ovshinsky laboratory. As Fritzsche and Brian Schwartz later wrote, “There is a mysterious quality in Ovshinsky’s persona that attracts people into his sphere, builds life long friendships and awakens deep respect and devotion. Meeting him leaves each person with a deep impression of his superior intellect, his self confidence, his compassion to improve society combined with his certainty that his vision can be realized. His enthusiasm is contagious. In his presence, you feel how exciting it would be to join him in his endeavors.” Among the many famous scientists who came regularly to ECD as friends or collaborators over the next years, were David Adler
David Adler (physicist)
David Adler was an American physicist and MIT professor. In condensed matter physics, Adler made significant contributions to the understanding of transition-metal oxides, the electronic properties of low-mobility materials, transport phenomena in amorphous materials, metal-insulator transitions,...
, Bardeen, Arthur Bienenstock, Morrel Cohen, Kenichi Fukui
Kenichi Fukui
Kenichi Fukui was a Japanese chemist.Kenichi Fukui was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981 with Roald Hoffmann, for their independent investigations into the mechanisms of chemical reactions...
, William Lipscomb
William Lipscomb
William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr. was a Nobel Prize-winning American inorganic and organic chemist working in nuclear magnetic resonance, theoretical chemistry, boron chemistry, and biochemistry.-Overview:...
, Sir Nevill Mott, Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling
Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...
, Isadore I. Rabi, Edward Teller
Edward Teller
Edward Teller was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," even though he did not care for the title. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy , and surface physics...
, David Turnbull
David Turnbull (materials scientist)
David Turnbull was an American physical chemist who worked in the interdisciplinary fields of materials science and applied physics. Turnbull made seminal contribution to solidification theory and glass formation. Turnbull was born in Elmira, Elmira Township, Stark County, Illinois...
, Victor Weisskopf, and Robert R. Wilson
Robert R. Wilson
Robert Rathbun Wilson was an American physicist who was a group leader of the Manhattan Project, a sculptor, and an architect of Fermi National Laboratory , where he was also the director from 1967–1978....
. Some joined as consultants or as members of the Board of Directors. Meanwhile, the ECD community developed a uniquely productive nonhierarchical multicultural and international culture reflecting Stan and Iris’ social values. In 1964, Stan and Iris changed the laboratory’s name to Energy Conversion Devices, at the time when the company moved to larger quarters in Troy, Michigan
Troy, Michigan
Troy is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan, and is a suburb of Detroit. The population was 80,980 at the 2010 census, making it the 11th-largest city in Michigan by population, and the largest city in Oakland County...
.
The laboratory continued to develop electronic memories, batteries, and solar cells, reinvesting almost every penny of profit into the scientific study of a wide variety of problems, many of which later became the basis of lucrative industries, e.g., flat screen liquid crystal displays. In time license fees to ECD began to grow, especially when amorphous silicon was used to make solar cells “by the mile,” with an approach that originated from the non-silver photographic film work on which Ovshinsky had been working. It led to the bold approach of using the first continuous web photovoltaic machine, designed and built under Stan’s direction by Herb Ovshinsky and a small group in the machine division. Generations of machines later resulted in sufficient monies to build Ovshinsky’s objective of having a 30 megawatt machine rather than a 5 megawatt machine. Despite considerable skepticism toward the machine, it is now being cloned very successfully by ECD in new plants. ECD also gained profits from the nickel metal hydride batteries which were important for a time in laptop computers and continue to be important in hybrid gas-electric automobiles
Hybrid vehicle
A hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the vehicle. The term most commonly refers to hybrid electric vehicles , which combine an internal combustion engine and one or more electric motors.-Power:...
.
Ovshinsky Innovation LLC
On August 16, 2006, Iris Ovshinsky, Stan's wife and partner of almost fifty years, died suddenly while swimming. A year later Ovshinsky retired from ECD and Ovshinsky launched a new company together with Rosa Young, whom he later married. At Ovshinsky Innovation LLC, Stan is continuing his work on information and energy science, in strong relationships with colleagues and with industrial partners (for example, Ovonyx, which is developing phase-change semiconductor memory). Ovshinsky Innovation is focusing presently on a new kind of photovoltaic plant based on a new concept promising to lower the cost of photovoltaic energy sources below that of coal. This latter innovation would help realize Ovshinsky's long-term goal over the last half-century to make fossil fuels obsolete while at the same time providing countless jobs in new industries. And ECD is becoming recognized as the company that "developed solar roofing shingles in the 1980s," is making "the best available flexible thin film in the world," and is one of the first companies to work on building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) Because of Ovshinsky’s independent and radical contributions to science, he has been compared with Einstein. Because of his many inventions in digital memory, solar energy, battery technology, optical media, and solid hydrogen storage and his hundreds of basic scientific patents, he has often been compared with Thomas EdisonThomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
. In the area of alternatives to fossil fuel, his pioneering work has caused many writers to refer to him as “the modern world’s most important energy visionary.”
Honors and awards
With more than 300 publications on his scientific vitae, Ovshinsky has won many prizes for his contributions to science and innovation. He is a fellow of the American Physical SocietyAmerican Physical Society
The American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
and the Engineering Society of Detroit
Engineering Society of Detroit
The Engineering Society of Detroit is a regional engineering association, headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, serving engineers and related technical professionals in Southeast Michigan...
. Ovshinsky is also a member of the Director's Council at the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. His awards include: the 2005 Innovation Award for Energy and the Environment by The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
; the American Solar Energy Society
American Solar Energy Society
The American Solar Energy Society is an association of solar professionals and advocates in the United States. Founded in 1954, ASES is dedicated to inspiring an era of energy innovation and speeding the transition toward a sustainable energy economy...
Hoyt Clarke Hottel Award; the Karl W. Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit; the International Association for Hydrogen Energy Sir William Grove Award; 2007 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation, presented by Sigma Xi, the Research Society; the Frederick Douglass/Eugene V. Debs Award (2006); the Engineering Society of Detroit Lifetime Achievement Award (2008); Recipient of the Environmental Hall of Fame 2008 Award, Solar Thin Film Category, Father of Thin-Film Solar Energy; the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Presidential Citation in recognition of a long and outstanding record of pioneering accomplishments and service to the profession (2009); and the 2009 Thomas Midgley Award from the Detroit Section of the American Chemical Society.
He was named “Hero for the Planet" by TIME
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
magazine (1999), with Iris Ovshinsky Hero of Chemistry 2000 by the American Chemical Society
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...
, and he was inducted into the 2005 Solar Hall of Fame.
In 1968, he received the Diesel Gold Medal presented by the German Inventors Association (Deutscher Erfinderverband), in recognition of his discovery of the semiconductor switching effect in disordered and amorphous materials.
On December 11, 2010 Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering degree from Kettering University
Kettering University
Kettering University is a university in Flint, Michigan, offering degrees in engineering, math, science, and business. The campus is located along the Flint River on property that used to be the main manufacturing location for General Motors...
, Flint, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
.
On May 1, 2010 Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
.
On May 7, 2009, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Science from Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
, Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
.
On May 16, 2009, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly called Illinois Tech or IIT, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...
, Chicago, Illinois.
On June 30, 2009, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Ovidius University
Ovidius University
-Curriculum:The university offers courses in Cultural Studies, Medicine and Mathematics in English., students coming from Moldova, Albania, Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, India, Turkmenistan, South Africa are enrolled as international students....
, Constanţa
Constanta
Constanța is the oldest extant city in Romania, founded around 600 BC. The city is located in the Dobruja region of Romania, on the Black Sea coast. It is the capital of Constanța County and the largest city in the region....
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
.
On May 18, 2008, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational research university in New York City. NYIT has five schools and two colleges, all with a strong emphasis on technology and applied scientific research...
, Old Westbury, New York.
On May 8, 2007, Ovshinsky was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Kean University
Kean University
Kean University is a coeducational, public research university located in Union and Hillside, New Jersey, United States. Kean University serves its students in the liberal arts, the sciences, and the professions with a dedication to intellectual and cultural growth and is best known for its...
, Union, New Jersey.
In popular culture
Ovshinsky appeared in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?Who Killed the Electric Car?
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the mid 1990s...
as well as in parts 1 and 3 of the episode "Hydrogen Hopes" of Alan Alda
Alan Alda
Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo , better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H...
’s television series Scientific American Frontiers
Scientific American Frontiers
Scientific American Frontiers was an American television program primarily focused on informing the public about new technologies and discoveries in science and medicine. It was a companion program to the Scientific American magazine. The show was produced for PBS in the U.S...
. The website of Scientific American Frontiers makes "Hydrogen Hopes" available for viewing at no charge, as well as the text of an interview with Stan and Iris Ovshinsky.http://www.pbs.org/saf/1506/ Ovshinsky was profiled as “Japan’s American Genius” in the PBS series NOVA
NOVA (TV series)
Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...
(October 1987).