Stan Ovshinsky Dead at 89

Stanford Ovshinsky the self-taught physicist who founded Energy Conversion Devices Inc. in 1960 and amassed some 1,200 patents worldwide died this week in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., at age 89.

The son of a metal scrap collector in Akron, Ohio, Ovshinsky was widely regarded by his scientific associates as a genius. He pioneered the use of amorphous materials to make thin-film semiconductors at a time when many scientists assumed non-crystalline semiconductors were impossible. He coined the term "ovonics," a combination of his name and electronics, to label the science involved.

Ovshinsky's early ideas were widely panned by the scientific community until David Adler, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, endorsed his work. Within years Ovshinsky's lab in Detroit became a magnet for researchers. Among the notable scientists who visited ECD were Linus Pauling and Edward Teller.

Time magazine described him in 1999 as a "hero for the planet." Seven years later The Economist magazine called him "the Edison of our age."

Ovshinsky developed nickel-metal hydride batteries, invented thin-film solar panels and earned patents for technologies used in everything from rewritable CDs and DVDs to flat-screen displays and fuel cells. His patents made him wealthy, and he was a lifelong champion of social causes, including bettering the lives of minorities and the poor.

Ovshinsky was a master at attracting funding for research, but his companies were famous for their chronic unprofitability.

His second wife, Iris, who co-founded ECD and was a vice president and director of the company, died in 2006 at age 79. Ovshinsky was pushed into retirement from ECD in 2007 but launched a new company, Ovshinsky Innovation LLC, a year later to continue pursuing his interest in energy sciences.

Last year he spent $6 million of his own money to set up Ovshinsky Solar with the goal of making electricity from sunlight at a lower cost than doing so by burning coal. Ovshinsky met with investors earlier this year about scaling up his technology for production.

The family plans a private burial service on Sunday in Akron. An online memorial is posted HERE.