Stanford R. Ovshinsky 11/24/1922 - 10/17/2012
Inventors and scientists don’t necessarily need formal training to become noted in their profession. This was the case for Stanford Ovshinsky who holds over 400 patents garnered in over a fifty year period. Ovshinsky began down the road of invention when he was still in high school working as a tool maker and machinist for a myriad of local shops in his home town of Akron, Ohio and after WW2 eventually opened up his own machine company, known as Stanford Roberts, initially inside of a barn. It was here he patented his first invention known as Benjamin Center Drive which was a fast center-drive lathe. The company was later sold to the New Britain Machine Company who made artillery shells for the allies during the Korean War. It was during this time that he began a growing interest in human and machine intelligence and began studying varying disciplines, such as cybernetics and neurophysiology, which would lead to R&D in the areas of energy and information technologies.
In the early 50’s he merged those disciplines and created (with his mechanical engineering brother Herb) a mechanical model of a nerve cell called the Ovitron, which was actually an amorphous thin-film switch which ultimately made him a pioneer in the use of nano-structures. This lead him to experiment with the continued use of chalcogenide materials. He found had ‘unique electronic properties’ that lead to divalent structural bonding (glasses of special composition) that go from an electrical non-conductive state to a semi-conductive one through the application of voltage known as Ovanics after his namesake.
These findings led to his ‘continuous web multi-junction flexible thin-film solar energy laminates,’ which became the basis of what we know now as thin-film photovoltaic cells. Ovshinsky can also be credited with having a hand in the development of LCD panels, re-writable CD’s and DVD’s as well as non-volatile phase-change memory (flash memory) and hydrogen fuel cells.
His most notable claim to fame however was his creation of the NiMH battery that’s widely used by just about everyone in mobile phones, hybrid cars and laptop computers (among a host of other devices). Ovshinsky’s many contributions has garnered him an impressive array of awards and honorary degrees over the years that include becoming a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Engineering Society of Detroit, the 2005 Innovation Award for Energy and the Environment, the 2008 Hall of Fame Award for the Father of Thin-Film Solar Energy in the Solar Thin-Film category, and named ‘Hero of The Planet’ by Time Magazine for his solar energy contributions. He also obtained Honorary Doctorate Engineering and Science degrees from countless Universities including the Illinois Institute of Technology and the New York Institute of Technology, which is outstanding for anybody in the engineering or science fields much less someone who’s formal education ended with a high school diploma!
Stanford Ovshinsky was truly a pioneer for most of the technology we use today, and the world owes him a debt of gratitude for his contributions. He is survived by his wife Rosa Young, his seven children, six grandchildren and his brother Herb.
Stanford R. Ovshinsky -
11/24/1922 – 10/17/2012
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