Lillian Hoddeson and Peter Garrett
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780262037532
- eISBN:
- 9780262345033
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262037532.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In late 1959, Iris was at last able to join Ovshinsky in Detroit, and they began creating a new family with her two young children and his three sons. This was also a new beginning in Ovshinsky’s ...
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In late 1959, Iris was at last able to join Ovshinsky in Detroit, and they began creating a new family with her two young children and his three sons. This was also a new beginning in Ovshinsky’s inventive career, as he and Iris started their novel company, Energy Conversion Laboratory. Here, in a modest storefront, Ovshinsky made his most important discovery: a threshold switch composed of amorphous chalcogenide materials. The threshold switch’s almost instantaneous and reversible action, something previously considered impossible, as well as its capacity to handle large AC currents, distinguished it from crystalline semiconductor devices like the transistor. Such switching, now known as “the Ovshinsky effect,” was a radically new phenomenon that would force a paradigm shift in condensed matter physics. A slightly different material composition yielded the memory switch, the basis of phase-change memory.Less
In late 1959, Iris was at last able to join Ovshinsky in Detroit, and they began creating a new family with her two young children and his three sons. This was also a new beginning in Ovshinsky’s inventive career, as he and Iris started their novel company, Energy Conversion Laboratory. Here, in a modest storefront, Ovshinsky made his most important discovery: a threshold switch composed of amorphous chalcogenide materials. The threshold switch’s almost instantaneous and reversible action, something previously considered impossible, as well as its capacity to handle large AC currents, distinguished it from crystalline semiconductor devices like the transistor. Such switching, now known as “the Ovshinsky effect,” was a radically new phenomenon that would force a paradigm shift in condensed matter physics. A slightly different material composition yielded the memory switch, the basis of phase-change memory.
Lillian Hoddeson and Peter Garrett
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780262037532
- eISBN:
- 9780262345033
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262037532.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This introduction offers a brief account of Ovshinsky’s career. It outlines his development from machinist and toolmaker to independent inventor and notes how his work on automation, including his ...
More
This introduction offers a brief account of Ovshinsky’s career. It outlines his development from machinist and toolmaker to independent inventor and notes how his work on automation, including his study of cybernetics and neurophysiology, led to his most important discovery of the “Ovshinsky effect,” using amorphous thin films. This switching effect was used to create semiconductor devices like his threshold switch and phase-change memory. After sketching Ovshinsky’s later career as the director of his own research and development laboratory, ECD, the introduction considers the source of Ovshinsky’s scientific and technological creativity in the thought processes of his self-educated, intuitive mind, which relied heavily on the use of analogies and visualization. It concludes by briefly considering how Ovshinsky’s work is related to his social-historical context, in particular, how his inventive career spans the transition from the industrial to the information age, making distinctive contributions to both.Less
This introduction offers a brief account of Ovshinsky’s career. It outlines his development from machinist and toolmaker to independent inventor and notes how his work on automation, including his study of cybernetics and neurophysiology, led to his most important discovery of the “Ovshinsky effect,” using amorphous thin films. This switching effect was used to create semiconductor devices like his threshold switch and phase-change memory. After sketching Ovshinsky’s later career as the director of his own research and development laboratory, ECD, the introduction considers the source of Ovshinsky’s scientific and technological creativity in the thought processes of his self-educated, intuitive mind, which relied heavily on the use of analogies and visualization. It concludes by briefly considering how Ovshinsky’s work is related to his social-historical context, in particular, how his inventive career spans the transition from the industrial to the information age, making distinctive contributions to both.
