Kurt Lehovec (June 12, 1918 – February 17, 2012) was one of the pioneers of the

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

. 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 (cor ...

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 Sprague Electric Company was an electronic component maker founded by Robert C. Sprague in 1926. Sprague was best known for making a large line of capacitors used in a wide variety of electrical and electronic in commercial, industrial and milit ...

. Because Lehovec was under salary with Sprague, he was paid only one dollar for this invention. Lehovec is also credited with discoverin
fast ion conductivity
Lehovec was born June 12, 1918 in Ledvice, in northern

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

, now part of the

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

. He was educated there and went to the US in 1947 under the auspices of

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

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

s citing previous work by

Oleg Losev Oleg Vladimirovich Losev (russian: Оле́г Влади́мирович Ло́сев, sometimes spelled Lossev or Lossew in English) (10 May 1903 – 22 January 1942) was a Russian scientist and inventor An English translatio M. A. Novikov ...

. 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 is the study and application of phenomena, properties, effects, methods and mechanisms of processes connected with fast ion transport (FIT) in all-solid-state nanoscale systems. The topics of interest include fundamental properties of ...

(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 C ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, 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 region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

until his death in 2012 at the age of 93.

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

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