Professor Kurt Lehovec

Born in Ledvice, northern Bohemia, of the Czech Republic, he was educated there and went to the US in 1947 under the auspices of Operation Paperclip which allowed scientists and engineers to emigrate. With Accardo and Jamgochian, he explained the first light-emitting diodes making him one of the pioneers of the integrated circuit. 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 he was under salary with Sprague, he was paid only one dollar for this invention. Integrated circuits are used in virtually all electronic equipment today and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, cell phones, and other digital appliances are now inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the low cost of production of integrated circuits. He first predicted the important case of fast ionic conduction in solid states as one in a surface space-charge layer of ionic crystals 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?s effect had given a basis for a creation of multitude nanostructured fast ion conductors which is used in modern portable lithium batteries and fuel cells. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.