Kurt Lehovec (12 June 1918 – 17 February 2012) was a Czech-American physicist. He one of the pioneers of the

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

. 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 (corre ...

s and lithium batteries, 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 discovering fast ion conductivity, and th
invention
of colored LEDs.

Biography

Lehovec was born 12 June 1918, in

Ledvice Ledvice () is a town in Teplice District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 500 inhabitants. Etymology The name was derived from the personal name Ledva, meaning "the village of Ledva's people". Geography Ledvice i ...

in northern

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

(now part of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

). He was educated there and went to the United States in 1947 under the auspices of

Operation Paperclip The Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War I ...

which allowed scientists and engineers to emigrate. With Carl Accardo and Edward Jamgochian, he explained the first

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 conductors as used in modern portable lithium batteries and fuel cells. Lehovec was a Professor Emeritus at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, 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 area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

until his death in 2012 at the age of 93.

Publications

(unconfirmed)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lehovec, Kurt 1918 births 2012 deaths People from Teplice District American physicists Czechoslovak physicists Operation Paperclip Fellows of the American Physical Society Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States

Biography

Publications

See also

References

External links