The Founders of ECD Ovonics

The new technologies that Stanford R. Ovshinsky and his wife — the late Dr. Iris M. Ovshinsky, his close collaborator who worked with him side-by-side from 1960 until her untimely death in August of 2006 — invented have enabled 21st century industries and jobs, spearheading an abundance of products and feeding back new knowledgebases into the educational stream of future generations.

For Almost five decades ago, Stan and Iris Ovshinsky proposed a radical idea, the hydrogen loop, to fully utilize the benefits of hydrogen, the universe’s ultimate energy source. What started as this couple’s inspiring commitment to make the world a better place is now realized in the products and technologies offered by the company they founded – Energy Conversion Devices. __Professor Dr. George S. Howard, author of “Stan Ovshinsky and the HYDROGEN ECONOMY...Creating a Better World”

Stanford R. Ovshinsky invented and pioneered the fundamentally new science of amorphous and disordered materials. But it was with his equal partner and full collaborator Iris that he founded Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD Ovonics) in 1960 to use science and technology, based on his discoveries, to solve serious societal problems in the fields of energy and information — the twin pillars of our global economy.

Stan started working in the field of disordered materials in 1955. He is a self-taught genius who defied the conventional thinking, for instance, of his contemporary physicists and proved that amorphous semiconductors can exist with exciting new physical, chemical, and electronic properties. He studied the high-field properties of a large number of these materials and, between 1958 and 1961, discovered and developed the two types of reversible switching phenomena that bear his name and which opened up the way for rewritable CDs and DVDs.

Iris graduated with a B.A. in Zoology from Swarthmore College, received an M.S. in Biology from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Boston University.

Armed with Iris’s formal training and Stan’s genius — working as a collaborative team — Stan and Iris have created breakthroughs in four major areas: energy generation, energy storage, information systems, and atomically engineered (nanotechnology) synthetic materials. Stan's inventions in optical media, digital memory, solar energy, battery technology, and solid hydrogen storage are creating new industries — providing new jobs and feeding back into our educational system to enrich people's lives. Scientists are working in the new fields he has spearheaded, such as his pioneering work in information, on Ovonic phase-change memories and the Ovonic threshold switch.

Dr. Iris M. Ovshinsky was a close collaborator in the science and the technology that they invented, enabling 21st century industries and jobs, spearheading an abundance of products. Here, the Ovshinskys are standing next to the solar cell manufacturing machine that they invented and built.

Stan and Iris have received public recognition not only for their scientific contributions but also for their efforts toward the betterment of society. Stan has been honored as one of Time Magazine's "Heroes for the Planet." Jointly, they have been honored with the American Chemical Society's "Heroes of Chemistry 2000 Award." In 1988, the PBS science program Nova labeled Stan as "Japan's American Genius." In 2001, they were recipients of the Wayne State University “Corporate Citizenship Award.” In 2005, Stan was inducted into the Solar Hall of Fame. In the same year, he was awarded the “2005 Innovation Award for Energy and the Environment” by The Economist for his pioneering work in and the development of the high-powered NiMH battery technology. In 2003, Iris was inducted into the “Academy of Distinguished Alumni” of her alma mater, Boston University.

Stan and Iris, as early as in 1960 in their storefront laboratory in Detroit, were planning a systems approach toward generation, transportation, storage, and utilization of hydrogen as an alternative power source. His science and technology of amorphous materials have resulted in the ability to make thin-film, continuous web, multi-junction material devices that can use the entire spectrum of sunlight resulting in the energy necessary to break up water to generate hydrogen. He treats energy as a system.

Stan has never allowed separation of scientific disciplines to deter him from what he clearly sees in his mind as what society needs. He uses the periodic chart of atoms as his engineering diagram to invent the possibilities that would make a difference in the lives of people. He has published in neurophysiology, neuropsychiatry, cosmology, solid state physics, chemistry, physics, materials sciences, and so on. He is working on a computer device that emulates the neurosynaptic behavior of biological neurons: thinking, learning, demonstrating nonbiological intelligence. His cognitive computer heralds the dawn of the next generation of smart computers — new jobs, new science to enrich the society. Before Iris’s death, they were working on the Ovonic Quantum Control Devices, which is believed to have the potential to replace the transistor.

The following excerpt (scroll to Energy and Environment category), which describes the essence of Stan's lifelong motivation — is from Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse, a book written by David E. Brown, with an introduction by James Burke, and a foreword by Lester C. Thurow, published by The MIT Press, a publication of the Lemelson-MIT Programs (http://www.inventingmodernamerica.com).

Stan is named as one of the thirty-five "inventors who helped to shape the modern world."

Stanford Ovshinsky built his career and several industries out of two basic ideas. The first was his concept for a completely new class of materials — disordered or "amorphous" materials. The second was a lifelong motivation: "I'd like to be able to make a better world." For more than 40 years, he has combined these two ideas in the pursuit of new kinds of electronics, batteries, and power sources that are more efficient, more powerful, and less polluting. Among the inventions that have come out of this quest are highly efficient batteries and hydrogen fuel cells to power automobiles, rewritable optical storage for computers, and solar cells that can be manufactured cheaply and in large quantities. His work, especially the batteries that powered General Motors' first production electric vehicles, the EV-1, led Time magazine to declare him a “Hero for the Planet."

These Ovonic NiMH batteries enable the new field of hybrid vehicles.

Stan and Iris were married for over 45 years and have five children and four grandchildren. They lived, worked, and sustained each other's intellectual stamina and fervor to serve mankind in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

One of the last photos taken by Stan and Iris Ovshinsky very shortly before her untimely death on 16 August 2006.

Stan Ovshinsky will surely be remembered as the self-made man of enormous talent and vision who devoted his life to technical problems of great benefit to society and the industry. Iris Ovshinsky will be remembered for the concrete contributions she made for almost five decades to Stan’s achievements and to the science and the technology that drives Energy Conversion Devices. They will be role models for the next generations to come.

See Stanford R. Ovshinsky's bio, list of publications, and photo.
See Iris M. Ovshinsky's bio, photo, obituary, and editorial.