John Robert Woodyard (1904–1981) was an American physicist who made important contributions to the technology of

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ran ...

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

and invented " doping" to improve the performance of

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

Life

Born in

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

and educated in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, Woodyard showed an early enthusiasm for

radio telegraphy Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies for t ...

and trained and worked as a radio operator and technician, at sea and on land. In 1928 he enrolled at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

to study

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and graduated in 1932. He then pursued an academic career, eventually arriving at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

to work with Russel and Sigurd F. Varian,

W. W. Hansen William Webster Hansen (May 27, 1909 – May 23, 1949) was an American physicist and professor. He was one of the founders of the technology of microwave electronics. Biography Hansen's father William G Hansen, who was a son of immigrants from Den ...

and

Edward Ginzton Edward Leonard Ginzton (December 27, 1915 – August 13, 1998) was a Ukrainian-American engineer. Education Ginzton completed his B.S. (1936) and M.S. (1937) in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph. ...

.Morton ''et al.''(1985) With Hansen, he developed the Hansen-Woodyard principle for

optimal design In the design of experiments, optimal designs (or optimum designs) are a class of experimental designs that are optimal with respect to some statistical criterion. The creation of this field of statistics has been credited to Danish statist ...

directional antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates or receives greater power in specific directions allowing increased performance and reduced interference from unwanted sources. Directional antennas provide increased performance ...

s. He was awarded his PhD in 1940 and moved, with the rest of Hansen's team, to

Sperry Gyroscope Company Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Sperry ceased to exist in 1986 following a prolonged hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroughs ...

to work on

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

during World War II. Woodyard filed many

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

s for Sperry, the most significant of which was for the process of "doping" to improve the performance of semiconductors.US Patent No.2,530,110, filed, 1944, granted 1950 The demands of war work denied Woodyard the opportunity to pursue this line of research but, post-war, the technique became crucially important in the

semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduct ...

and proved the grounds of extensive litigation by

Sperry Rand Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Sperry ceased to exist in 1986 following a prolonged hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroughs ...

. In 1945 Woodyard briefly joined

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

before appointment at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

to work with

Luis Walter Alvarez Luis Walter Alvarez (June 13, 1911 – September 1, 1988) was an American experimental physicist, inventor, and professor who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his discovery of resonance states in particle physics using the h ...

and Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky on the Berkeley

proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...

accelerator. An enthusiastic and able teacher, he continued to lecture after his retirement in 1971. Woodyard was survived by his wife, Ruth, and two daughters, Alix and Mary Inman.

Honours

*Fellow of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, (1963), "For Contributions to Electronic Engineering Education".

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Woodyard, John Robert 1904 births 1981 deaths 20th-century American physicists