Kurt Lehovec (June 12, 1918 – February 17, 2012) was one of the pioneers of the
integrated circuit. While also pioneering the
photo-voltaic effect,
light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (co ...
s and
lithium batteries
Lithium battery may refer to:
* Lithium metal battery, a non-rechargeable battery with lithium as an anode
** Rechargeable lithium metal battery, a rechargeable counterpart to the lithium metal battery
* Lithium-ion battery, a rechargeable batte ...
, he innovated the concept of
p-n junction isolation used in every circuit element with a ''guard ring'': a reverse-biased p-n junction surrounding the planar periphery of that element. This patent was assigned to
Sprague Electric.
Because Lehovec was under salary with Sprague, he was paid only one dollar for this invention.
Lehovec is also credited with discoverin
fast ion conductivity
Lehovec was born June 12, 1918 in
Ledvice
Ledvice (german: Ladowitz) is a town in Teplice District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 500 inhabitants.
Geography
Ledvice is located about southwest of Teplice. It lies in the Most Basin.
Notable people
*Jar ...
, in northern
Bohemia, now part of the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
. He was educated there and went to the US in 1947 under the auspices of
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...
which allowed scientists and engineers to emigrate.
With
Carl Accardo and
Edward Jamgochian, he explained the first
light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (co ...
s citing previous work by
Oleg Losev.
The important case of fast ionic conduction in solid states is one in a surface space-charge layer of ionic crystals. Such conduction was first predicted by K. Lehovec in the paper "Space-charge layer and distribution of lattice defects at the surface of ionic crystals" ( J. Chem. Phys. 1953. V.21. P.1123 -1128). As a space-charge layer has nanometer thickness, the effect is directly related to
nanoionics (nanoionics-I).
The Lehovec effect forms a basis for a creation of multitude nanostructured
fast ion conductor
In materials science, fast ion conductors are solid conductors with highly mobile ions. These materials are important in the area of solid state ionics, and are also known as solid electrolytes and superionic conductors. These materials are usef ...
s as used in modern portable lithium batteries and fuel cells.
Lehovec was a Professor Emeritus at the
University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8.1 ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, and after retirement from USC Lehovec took to writing poetry. He lived in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
until his death in 2012 at the age of 93.
Publications
(unconfirmed)
See also
*
Invention of the integrated circuit
The first planar monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip was demonstrated in 1960. The idea of integrating electronic circuits into a single device was born when the German physicist and engineer Werner Jacobi developed and patented the first known ...
Notes
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehovec, Kurt
1918 births
2012 deaths
American physicists
Czechoslovak physicists
Operation Paperclip
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States