The self-taught genius behind Energy Conversion Devices

Nov 11 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Todd Spangler Detroit Free Press

Energy Conversion Devices was the brainchild of Stanford Ovshinsky and his late wife, Iris, who founded the company as Energy Conversion Lab in Detroit in 1960. The company's goal was audacious: to find solutions to societal problems related to information and energy and change the world.

Ovshinsky, now 88, has been wildly successful. He holds more than 400 patents, many linked to solar power and hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Five years ago, it was Ovshinsky -- not Apple's Steve Jobs -- whom the magazine The Economist suggested rhetorically might be "The Edison of Our Age."

The self-taught Ovshinsky, who began as a machinist and then became an auto industry researcher, made key innovations in semiconductor materials and phase change memory, an important advancement for electronics. He invented the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery -- used, as The Economist noted, "to power everything from portable electronics to hybrid cars." (Ovonics is a term coined from combining his last name and "electronics.") His discoveries played roles in flat-screen TV displays and hydrogen fuel cells.

In solar power, ECD's United Solar Ovonic was created to refine a process by which thin-film laminates that convert sunlight to electricity would be produced, steadily increasing the capacity of machines to roll out the laminates. Ovshinsky, who lives in Bloomfield Hills, left ECD in 2007. At his new company -- Ovshinsky Innovation -- he continues his research.