In Memoria

  • Warren L. Smith

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    Warren L. Smith, 84, of Allentown, PA passed away Tuesday, December 9, 2008, in Good Shepherd Speciality Hospital, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Born in Wayne, Nebraska, on July 6, 1924, he was the son of James Morrison Smith and Mattie (Meng) Smith. Warren made major contributions to both resonators and oscillators, as evidenced by his seminal papers and reports, including R. A. Sykes, W. L. Smith, and W. J. Spencer, “Studies on High Precision Resonators,” Proc. 17th Annual Symposium on Frequency Control, pp. 4-27, 1963, AD423381; R. E. Paradysz and W. L. Smith, “Crystal Controlled Oscillators for Radiation Environments,” Proc. 27th Ann. Symp. Frequency Control, pp. 120-123, AD-771042; “An Ultraprecise Standard of Frequency,” W. L. Smith, final report for U. S. Army contract DA 36-039 SC-73078, p. 13, 1 Dec. 1960, AD-253034; W. L. Smith and W. J. Spencer, “Quartz Crystal Controlled Oscillators,” Final Report, U.S. Army Contract DA36-039 SC-85373, Report No. 25335-H, 15 March 1963, AD-419717; and his reviews, chapter 8.1 on Bulk-Acoustic-Wave Oscillators, and chapter 8.3 on Quartz Frequency Standards and Clocks in the book, E. A. Gerber and A. Ballato, Precision Frequency Control, Vol. 2, pp. 45-98, Academic Press, 1985. He was raised in Yankton, South Dakota, and graduated from Yankton High School in 1942. After graduation, Smith entered Michigan College of Mining and Technology. During that year, he joined the Naval Reserve Officers Training Program and was assigned to the USNR training program at the University of Wisconsin, where he completed the work for a BSEE degree in 1945. Smith completed his midshipman training at Columbia University and was then assigned as an instructor at the Underway Training Center in San Diego until released to inactive duty. He returned to the University of Wisconsin for Doctoral work in Physics. Weeks before graduation, he was recalled to active duty in 1951 to serve aboard a navy destroyer in Korean waters. He was soon transferred to the Atomic Bomb Task Force headquartered in Washington, D.C., where he supervised a group of civilian scientists responsible for carrying out various experiments during two of the Pacific test operations on the Bikini Atoll in 1953 and 1954. Upon his honorable discharge, Smith joined the Bell Telephone Laboratories as a member of the technical staff in the Piezoelectric Department. In 1962, he was promoted to supervisor of the Precision Frequency and Selection Group responsible for the design and development of precision controlled oscillators and associated circuits, design of crystal filters, and the design and specification of quartz crystal resonators. Smith was the author of 17 articles. He was granted several United States and foreign patents. In 1968, Smith and William Spenser were awarded one of the IR-100 awards from the Industrial Research Magazine. He also received the C. B. Sawyer Award in 1975 for continuing contributions to the field of precision frequency control and selection. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in 1973. The Electronic Industries Association named Smith the Quartz Devices “Man of the Year” in 1986 for outstanding service and many contributions to the industry. In 1971, Smith was appointed a US Delegate and Technical Advisor to Technical Commission 49 of the International Electro Technical Commission. He became chairman of Working Group 6 on Measurements and Working Group 7 concerned with crystal oscillators. He served on these commissions until 1990 and was the author of several standards publications and guide documents on behalf of the United Nations National Committee for the IEC. He retired in from Bell Laboratories in 1987. He continued to serve on the IEEE Standards Committee until 1994 and made significant contributions to work on piezoelectric crystals. Warren married Frances Dowd in 1948. They are the parents of five children, Marjory, Catherine, James, Jerry, and Janine. Warren has 11 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren and one brother, James.

  • Robert Adler

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    Robert Adler – Scientist, Engineer, Teacher, and Inventor 1913 – 2007 The ultrasonics community lost one of its most prolific inventors when Robert Adler passed away on 15 February 2007 in Boise, Idaho USA at the age of 93. His loss marks the culmination of an illustrious career spanning seven decades that led to pioneering contributions in vacuum tubes, ultrasonics, acoustooptical interactions, and surface acoustic waves and their applications to the electronics industry, consumer electronics, and communications equipment. Robert Adler was born in Vienna in 1913. After receiving his doctorate in physics in 1937 from the University of Vienna, Austria, he became engaged in patent work there, and later went to England. After the war broke out, he came to Chicago and worked first in the field of measuring instruments. He joined Zenith Radio Corporation in 1941. Ten years later he was made Associate Director of Research, Vice President in 1959, and Director of Research in 1963. In addition to his own research, in the thirty-seven years after he joined the research group at Zenith, he played an increasingly important role in forging one of the great industrial research teams in the U.S., at times numbering more than three hundred people. When economic exigencies compelled a drastic retrenching of this activity, rather than preside over it, Adler resigned his post in 1978. He became Vice President of Research of the Extel Corporation in Northbrook, Illinois until 1982. Always committed to the continuing education of engineers, Adler was also adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana. Never one to actually retire, Dr. Adler remained a technical consultant primarily with Zenith, until 1999 when Zenith merged with LG Electronics Inc., and Elo TouchSystems. His early work was concentrated in new types of vacuum tubes, including the phasitron modulator used in early FM transmitters, receiving tubes for FM detection and color demodulation, transverse-field traveling wave tubes, and the electron beam parametric amplifier. His numerous contributions to ultrasonics technology include the first electromechanical IF filter and the development of ultrasonic remote control devices for television receivers which remained in use until about 1980 when infrared LEDs and phototransisters replaced ultrasound. He was active in the fields of acoustoopitcal interaction (light deflectors for image scanning), acoustic surface waves (filters and amplifiers) and the optical video disc. His recent work has largely been in the field of display devices and touch systems for displays employing surface acoustic waves. Dr. Adler developed the gated-beam tube which represented a new concept in receiving tubes. His noise-gated synch clipper and automatic gain control secured stability of television reception in the fringe areas. His contribution to low-noise traveling-wave tubes was important in military communications. Later he applied the new principle of parametric amplification to electron beams which was at the time the most sensitive practical amplifier for ultra high frequency (UHF) signals. It was used by radio astronomers in the United States and abroad. Electromechanical devices always interested Adler. During World War II he worked on high-frequency magnetostrictive oscillators. Remote control of television receivers by an ultrasonic gong grew out of this work. Interest in the interaction between light and ultrasound led to new ways of deflecting and modulating laser beams, using Bragg diffraction for television displays and in high-speed printing. Adler pioneered the use of surface acoustic waves in intermediate frequency filters for color television, a technology that has since become universal, not only in television but as an essential building block of cellular telephone handsets. Concurrently he devoted attention to optical video disc players. Dr. Adler also pioneered the use of surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology for touch screens. Since the early 1990s, as a consultant to Elo TouchSystems, he actively contributed to the commercialization and further innovation of his SAW touch screen invention. A prolific inventor with a seemingly never-ending thirst for knowledge, his pioneering developments spanned from the Golden Age of Television into the High-Definition Era, earning him more than 180 U.S. patents. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch-screen technology, on 1 February 2007. “Bob Adler was an unparalleled technical contributor, leader, adviser and teacher,” said Jerry K. Pearlman, retired Zenith chairman and CEO, who knew Dr. Adler for 35 years. “His gifts and passions were many, his mentoring matchless and his ego totally nonexistent.” In 1951, Dr. Adler became a Fellow of the Institute of Radio Engineers (now IEEE) “for his development of transmission and detection devices for frequency modulated signals and of electro-mechanical filter systems.” He received the IEEE Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 1958 for his “original work on ultrasonic remote controls” for television, the Inventor of the Year award from George Washington University in 1967, the IEEE Outstanding Achievement Award in Consumer Electronics in 1970, the Outstanding Technical Paper Award from the Chicago Section of the IEEE in 1974 for his report on “An Optical Video Disc Player for NTSC Receivers,” representing early work in what was to become the digital video disc or DVD. He was the recipient of the IEEE Edison Medal in 1980 “For many inventions in the fields of electronic beam tubes and ultrasonic devices, and for leadership in innovative research and development.” In 1981, he received the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society Achievement Award for “insight, innovation, and leadership given to ultrasonics technology.” Together with Eugene Polley and other Zenith engineers, he was honored in 1997 by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with an Emmy award for Zenith’s introduction of the first wireless TV remote controls 50 years ago. He was a charter inductee in the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame in 2000. Also in 2000, Dr. Adler was inducted into the National Academy of Arts and Sciences Chicago/Midwest Chapter’s “Silver Circle,” which recognizes “outstanding individuals who have devoted a quarter of a century or more to the television industry and have made a significant contribution to Chicago broadcasting.” He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. A lover of the arts, Dr. Adler was active in the Chicago cultural community for decades, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Masters of Baroque, and community theater. A world traveler for both business and pleasure, he was fluent in German, English and French. He was an active participant in a Chicago-area French Club for 35 years. One incident that is characteristic of Robert Adler. When sent to Moscow as a member of the IEEE delegation to the Popov Society Meeting in 1969, he learned Russian so that, as a goodwill gesture to his hosts, he could present his paper in their language. He was an avid reader. He loved his cats and laughter. He obtained his pilot license in the1950’s and was an enthusiastic flier. He was as passionate about hiking and skiing as he was about science and the arts. He was an avid downhill skier until age 89, and was still hiking in the past year. Robert Adler is survived by his wife Ingrid (nee Koch) Adler.[Editor’s Note: This biography was excerpted by Jan Brown from personal biographies written by Robert Adler over the years, two formal biographies written in 2000 and 2007 by John Taylor, LG Electronics USA, Inc., (Formerly, Zenith Electronics Corp.), the UFFC Archives, the IEEE History Center and a multitude of news stories found on the internet from all over the world.]

  • Peter Krempl

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    Peter Krempl – Award Winning Researcher 1943 – 2006 Dr. Peter Krempl, recipient of the C.B. Sawyer award in 2003, and of the European Frequency and Time Award in 2005, passed away on November 2, 2006 at the age of 63. In addition to his other substantial achievements, Peter pioneered the research on the physical and electro-acoustical properties of Gallium Orthophosphate (GaPO4) crystals, and the development of industrial growth processes for large crystals including the epitaxial growth of GaPO4 on quartz. Peter has explored new applications for GaPO4 for frequency control and piezo-sensor applications. Peter received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Vienna, Austria, in 1975; was a fellow at CERN, Geneva (1973-1976); and was head of Physics Research at AVL List, Graz, Austria, since 1976. He received the venia docenti at the University of Graz in 1995. Peter has published more than 100 scientific papers and is holder of numerous patents. The frequency control community mourns the loss of an excellent scientist in our field.

  • Harry Tiersten

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    Harry F. Tiersten – Renowned Theoretician on Piezoelectric Plate Vibrations 1930 – 2006 Prof. Harry Tiersten, a faculty member of the Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering passed away suddenly from a heart attack on June 12, 2006. Professor Tiersten was an unusual combination of an outstanding researcher, a gifted lecturer and teacher, and a strong source of guidance and inspiration for his graduate students. He is considered to be one of the founders of the macroscopic theories of continuum electrodynamics. He is the author of two technical books and of many research papers published in technical journals. Harry F. Tiersten was born in 1930 and grew up in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, New York City. He received a B.S. degree in civil engineering in 1952, and went on to earn M.S. and Ph. D. degrees in engineering mechanics in 1956 and 1961. All three degrees were awarded by Columbia University. At Columbia, his graduate study and doctoral dissertation were carried out under the guidance of Prof. Raymond Mindlin. His professional career was spent primarily at two illustrious institutions. From 1961 to 1967, he was a member of the Technical Staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories (now the Lucent Corp.) at two locations, first at Whippany NJ and later at Murray Hill NJ. From 1967 until his death, he served on the faculty of RPI. Dr. Tiersten had a distinguished and internationally recognized career. One of his early contributions after joining Bell Telephone Laboratories was to write the theoretical section of ANSI/IEEE Std 176-1978, “Standard on Piezoelectricity”. His first book “Linear Piezoelectric Plate Vibrations”, published in 1969 by Plenum Press, has been a major reference on the theory of piezoelectric vibrations ever since its publication. After his earlier contributions to the linear theory of piezoelectricity, Dr. Tiersten went on to develop the theory of nonlinear electroelasticity for large deformations and strong fields, the linear theory for infinitesimal fields superposed on large biasing fields, and the perturbation theory for frequency shifts in piezoelectric resonators. In the areas just mentioned, these theories continue to influence the work of present day researchers. His contributions also extend to theories for general nonlinear interactions of elastic deformations with electromagnetic fields in continuous media, including thermal effects and conduction or semiconduction. His distinctive point of view in this area of work is presented in his second book, completed late in his career, “A Development of the Equations of Electromagnetism in Material Continua”, published by Springer-Verlag in 1990. He was also highly regarded in the mechanics community internationally. He is considered to be one of the founders of the study of macroscopic theories of continuum electrodynamics. His style was exemplary of Mindlin’s school of applied mechanics researchers, ranging from fundamental theories to applications in technology. For example, Dr. Tiersten’s work on the sensitivity of resonator frequency to acceleration done in the 1980s is crucial to satellite systems in use today. During his career, Dr. Tiersten was the recipient of a number of honors and awards. He was a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Acoustical Society of America, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was a member of the American Physical Society and the Society of Engineering Science organizations. He was the recipient of the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control (UFFC) Society C. B. Sawyer award in 1979, “for contributions to the theory of piezoelectric resonators”. He received the IEEE UFFC Society’s Achievement Award in 1993 “for developing several rational theories for analyzing the electroelastic behavior in anisotropic crystals, including piezoelectric, nonlinear and energy-trapping effects for bulk and surface acoustic waves”. He was awarded the Fellow membership grade of the IEEE in 1995 with the citation “for contributions to the analysis of thickness-shear quartz resonators and surface acoustic wave devices”. Dr. Tiersten is survived by his wife of 53 years, Helen, and by a daughter, Linda, and a son, Steven. Prof. Tiersten will be remembered as a man of great character and intellectual ability, with honesty and integrity as his core values. He will be missed by all who knew him; but his family, his former students, and his many friends can take some consolation in the fact that the work he has created will have an impact on the field of continuum mechanics far into the future.

  • Leonard Cutler

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    Leonard S. Cutler – Atomic Clock Scientist, Engineer and Innovator 1928 – 2006 The time and frequency community lost one of its most prominent members when Len Cutler passed away, at age 78, on September 4, 2006, while camping with his wife in Big Basin Redwoods State Park in California, USA. His loss marks the end of an illustrious career that led to pioneering contributions over the past forty-nine years in the field of ultra-precise timekeeping standards, devices, and measurement technologies. Len earned his BS (1958), MS (1960), and PHD (1966) in Physics from Stanford University while working at neighboring Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. Len’s early work at HP was concentrated on the development of oscillators and atomic frequency standards and clocks. The first atomic clock was invented in 1948. In the early 1960s, HP started a program to design a cesium clock for commercial purposes. In 1964, Cutler and his colleague Al Bagley succeeded inventing the HP5060A Cesium Beam Atomic Clock. This was the first all-solid-state cesium-beam chronometer, whose output frequency was soon adopted as the world time standard by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and other scientific centers around the world. Cutler’s 1964 clock coordinated international time to within a microsecond, whereas previous efforts had pared accuracy down to only a millisecond. Cutler continued refining both the design and the constituent parts of cesium clocks, as well as research in quantum mechanics. His most recent triumph, in 1991, was the HP 5071A: at twice the accuracy of its predecessor, it remains the world’s most accurate commercial clock, losing about one second every 1.6 million years. HP 5071As also account for 82% of the data relied on to keep the International Atomic Time Standard (as of 2006). Len’s contributions to the development of commercial cesium standards culminated in the development of HP’s “super tube” which incorporated many innovations to sense and correct for the influence of environmental perturbations on the clock. After the spin-off of Agilent Technologies from HP, Len became a part of Agilent Laboratories, becoming its first (and only, as of Len’s death in 2006) Agilent Distinguished Fellow. In the last few years, Len had concentrated on the study and designs related to the chip scale atomic clock and as a general consultant to Agilent Laboratories.
    Not surprisingly, Len had numerous patents for various atomic devices. But he also had other patents in such diverse fields as quartz oscillators and the two-frequency laser interferometer, which has become an essential element of integrated circuit manufacturing. Leonard S. Cutler was well known and respected in the US and abroad as an authority on atomic clocks, oscillators, and timekeeping. His many honors include election to IEEE Fellow in 1978 (“For contributions to the design of atomic frequency standards and to the theory and measurement of frequency stability”), the IEEE’s Morris E. Leeds Award and Centennial Award (1984), election to the National Academy of Engineering (1987),recipient of the American Institute of Physics’ Industrial Applications of Physics Award (1993), the IEEE Rabi Award (1989, For consistent technical and managerial contributions to the development of atomic cesium, rubidium and mercury ion frequency standards), and in 1990, Cutler became HP’s first Distinguished Contributor. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1996, and received the IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000. He served on the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE Frequency Control Symposium for 32 years (1974-2006).
    Len is survived by his wife, Dorothy; four sons, Jeff, Greg, Steve and Scott; a brother, Fred; a sister, Anita Roth; and four grandchildren.

  • George A. Samara

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    George Samara was an internationally recognized scientist for his pioneering work on structural phase transformations involving ferroelectric materials. Through his research studies, he became perhaps the world’s most accomplished scientist in the use of high pressure for fundamental studies of the dielectric and structural properties of such materials. Although George was born in southern Lebanon in 1936, his father was a United States citizen. He came to the United States as a sixteen-year-old and graduated from the University of Oklahoma; then he went to the University of Illinois at Urbana where he earned a doctorate in chemical engineering in 1962. This was under the direction of Professor Harry Drickamer, who was a hard task-master. His thesis work as well as continued collaborations with Drickamer covered a wide range of materials. These include pressure effects on the resistance of metalloids, simple fcc and bcc, II-VI, III-V compounds to more exotic fused-ring aromatics. This collaboration with Drickamer continued into the 1970s. Later other co-authors also enjoyed such long enduring relationships, several extending over two and three decades. Even though a list of co-authors exceeds 70, George was also the single author of nearly 100 papers. Upon completing his degree at Illinois in 1962, he joined Sandia National Laboratory, but immediately fulfilled his military duty spending the next two years as an ROTC officer [Commissioned Lieutenant] at the Institute of Exploratory Research for the U. S. Army Electronics Laboratory at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. There he was able to continue research involving pressure effects on solids, including the pressure homogeneity of the sample in the pressure apparatus, and developed various techniques to measure the physical properties under pressure, such as compressibilities, electrical conductivities, dielectric constants, and Curie points. This effort was with Armando Giardini and others at Fort Monmouth. Also included was a paper in the area of what became of major importance to not only the entire world-wide research field, but also his personal research, as well as to Sandia- ferroelectrics. Returning to Sandia, George began and continued an active personal research effort up to the final days of his life. In fact he was investigating a promising new ferroelectric material when he passed away. George’s numerous scientific papers included pioneering work on structural phase transformations, semiconductor physics, ferroelectrics, ferroelectric polymers, nanosized semiconductor clusters, defects, deep electronic levels, relaxation in crystalline solids and polymers, ionic transport, ceramics, photovoltaics, and MBE and CVD synthesis and processing. Among the invited reviews are two chapters in Solid State Physics, “The Study of Soft Mode Transitions at High Pressure” with Paul Peercy and “High Pressure Studies of Ionic Conductivity in Solids”. Through this research effort, George became perhaps the world’s most accomplished scientist in the use of high pressure for fundamental studies of electronic and structural properties of solid state materials.
    In high pressure science George was active in national and international organizations. He served as Vice President and Executive Committee of the International Association of High Pressure Science and Technology (AIRAPT); Chairman of the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Panel on High Pressure Science and Technology; Chairman 1974 Gordon Conference on Research at High Pressure; Co-Chair and Program Chairman of the 1993 Joint AIRAPT/American Physical Society Conference on High Pressure Science and Technology. George was awarded the Ipatieff Prize of the American Chemical Society. In 1986 he was elected to the [U.S.] National Academy of Engineering. He was a Fellow Member of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His activities also included editorial or advisory boards on Ferroelectrics, Reviews of Scientific Instruments, and Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids.Those of us who were familiar with George’s unusually accomplished research career as well as his extraordinary organizational ability to develop a host of national and international materials research activities might also realize he possessed excellent management skills. At Sandia National Laboratory, he was initially promoted in 1967 and served in various management capacities involving oversight of research in condensed matter physics, electronic materials and phenomena, chemistry research activities, advanced materials and nanoscience. His interaction, insight and support of those and other collaborating scientists led to world-wide recognition of excellence for various individuals and groups. George had a unique combination of deep scientific understanding and insight, foresight, friendliness, and personal and organizational leadership abilities. He was widely recognized for his high professional, ethical, and scientific standards that have inspired all who had contact with him. In addition to overseeing management of these research activities, George took on additional management responsibilities. During the last thirteen years of his career, he served as Manager of Sandia Laboratories DOE Basic Energy Sciences Materials. He was largely responsible for developing the concept for the DOE Center of Excellence for the Synthesis and Processing of Advanced Materials, a coordinated, cooperative venture among twelve national laboratories and several industrial and university partners, and he served as its Director. In this effort, he earned the admiration and respect from his colleagues at the other national laboratories and the materials research community for his unbiased even-handed coordination and leadership. Based on his technical management and leadership George was awarded the American Chemical Society’s Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership in Chemical Management in 2000. For amazing as his technical accomplishments were, George was much broader, a man for all seasons. In his younger days, he hiked the local New Mexico mountains as well as in the midrange of the Sierra Nevada in California. He was a respectful opponent in tennis. He visited Lebanon through the years; there he met and married his wife, Helen. Those that lived or visited Albuquerque enjoyed the Lebanese hospitality and food at their home. Fresh grapes, apricots, and particularly two varieties of figs were provided from his back yard. He enjoyed gardening, the arts, particularly music, and even wrote poetry for his church congregation. George was a gift to us all. He will be sorely missed.

  • Zhiwen Yin

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    Prof. Zhiwen Yin was Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, former Deputy Director of the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Director of the Academic Committee, and a former member of the Ferroelectrics Committee, IEEE-UFFC. Prof. Zhiwen Yin passed away on July 18, 2006 at Shanghai Huadong Hospital, China, at the age of 88. Prof. Yin graduated from the Department of Mining and Metallurgy, Yunnan University in 1942 and received M.S. degrees from the Department of Metallurgy, University of Missouri, Rolla and the Department of Ceramic Engineering, University of Illinois, U.S.A. in 1948 and 1950 respectively. He was elected to be a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1993. As a materials scientist and Professor of Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. Yin devoted his lifetime to the research on functional ceramics, ferroelectrics, and scintillation crystals. He was one of the pioneers in the research and development of the lead zirconium titanate (PZT) piezoelectric ceramics in China and made important contributions to the research and applications of China’s functional ceramic materials. He conducted research work on the phase transition and microstructure changes in relaxor ferroelectrics, PLZT transparent ceramics, and the observation of the nanometer size polar micro-regions in PLZT. He was engaged in the scintillation crystals research since the early 1980’s. After recognizing the radiation damage in the bismuth germanate (BGO) crystal was the result of radiation-induced color centers due to oxygen vacancies in the crystal, he successfully developed a new type of Eu-doped BGO scintillation crystal with high radiation hardness. The scintillation crystal research group led by him provided more than 10,000 pieces of large size BGO crystals for the construction of the electromagnetic calorimeter in the European Nuclear Research Center (CERN). His work on the halide scintillation crystals such as BaF2, CaF2, PbF2, Csl(TI), etc., was also of seminal significance and well recognized worldwide. Prof. Yin was known for his cheerfulness and his contagious laughter. He is missed by the international ferroelectrics community.

  • John H. Sherman, Jr.

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    John H. Sherman, Jr. – Quartz Crystal Industry Personality 1918 – 2006 John H. Sherman, Jr., a Lynchburg resident since January, 1959, died on April 7, 2006. His death was a consequence of an untreatable liver tumor. He was born at Lewis Gale Hospital on Aug 12, 1918, the son of John H Sherman of Ash Grove, VA and Mary Mosby Stephens Sherman of Christiansburg. Some of his many contributions to quartz crystal technology are documented in the Proceedings of the Frequency Control Symposium. In 1955 (vacuum tube days) he created the concept of “trim sensitivity,” while working as a components engineer. He then became a Quartz Crystal Engineer and transferred to the General Electric Mobile Radio Division in Lynchburg, Virginia. He worked on crystal resonators, monolithic filters, and surface wave filters. He was dedicated to the application of scientific study to the manufacturing process, to the point of using vacation time and paying his own way to crystal conferences before management saw the value in it. From 1969-1979 he was Chairman of EIA Working Group P5.4, the “EIA Technical Working Group for the Frequency Control Industry.” In 1980 he wrote the first interactive computer program for the design of AT resonators. He continued as a consultant after retiring from GE. His early education was primarily in the public schools of Illinois. He prepared himself to be a symphony orchestra musician studying French horn with Max Pottag, Alberto Stagliano, and Edward Murphy. He studied conducting with Clarke Kessler and Vladimir Bakaleinikoff.. At the advice of Bakaleinikoff he completed a regular college degree with majors in Mathematics and Chemistry at the University of Tampa. He was auditioning with the Buffalo Philharmonic when the Army called him and he was appointed first horn of the band at Byrd Field. The Army then reassigned him into the Army specialized training program (ASTP) at Lehigh University. Everyone who completed the course of study in this program was assigned into the Manhattan Engineering District. The ASTP was discontinued before he completed his course and he was assigned to the 3186th Signal Service Battalion in which he saw service in both the European and Far Eastern theaters. At the end of the war he returned to Lehigh University and completed a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering. After 3 years of teaching he took employment at General Electric Co. in Syracuse NY and spent 29 yrs with GE, 27 of them working with quartz crystal resonators. In Syracuse he participated in the revitalization of the Syracuse Symphony. When transferred to Lynchburg he was instrumental in the founding of the orchestra which has developed into the Lynchburg Symphony and has played under all six of the music directors of the symphony. He was on the board of Community Concerts for 33 years, President for 21 of them. He served on the board of the Academy of Music before it combined with the Fine Arts Center. Among his many accomplishments, he was selected Senior Elfun of the Year, awarded the national Piezoelectric Devices Man of the Year, and shot a hole in one on the 5th hole at Oakwood Country Club. He is survived by his wife, Marie, two daughters, Mary Sherman and Ida Cole, two grandchildren, Dr. Janis Taube (and husband Dr. Alexander Hillel) and H. Joseph Ramagli, III (and fiancée Emily Hornback), and by his sister, Frances Sherman Bailey, of Ridgewood, NJ. Extended family include Susan and Shawn Underwood, Michael Silvester, Matthew Silvester, Dan and Kelly Silvester, Christopher Silvester, Howard J. Ramagli, Jr., and Arthur Caisse. Memorial gifts may be sent to First Unitarian Church, 818 Court Street, Lynchburg, VA 24504 or Academy of Fine Arts, 600 Main Street, Lynchburg, VA 24504.

  • Wallace H.E. Samuelson

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    Wallace H.E. Samuelson – Quartz Crystal Industry Leader and Innovator 1919 – 2005 Wallace H. E. Samuelson, 86, died Jan. 24, 2005, in Birmingham, Ala. Mr. Samuelson grew up in New York City. He was a graduate of Antioch College and Harvard University with a master’s degree in communication engineering. He married Lois Samuelson in 1939. He briefly taught physics at Antioch College, but his main occupation was in the quartz crystal electronics business initially in Rochester, N.Y., and Weehawken, N.J., and then later in Carlisle, where he moved to in about 1946. After their children left for college he and Lois moved to Harrisburg where they remained until 1997. Wally owned and operated Piezo Crystal Co. for many years with friend and partner Herman Shall, designing and manufacturing components for radio communication devices for the Armed Forces, private industry, and space exploration. After selling the plant, he continued as an engineering management consultant until the early 1990s. After Herman’s untimely death in 1970, he ably acted as surrogate father and grandfather for the Shall family: Tillie (widow) and children Maxine, David, Donald and Michael. He and Lois moved to Birmingham, Ala., in 1997 to be near their son. Lois died in 1997. He again fell in love and married Peggy Benjamin in 1999. Wally was a very kind, friendly, loving, generous person. He was analytical, inquisitive, academic, scholarly and a patient teacher for Paul and Basja during their school years, and to employees and friends. He was known for his love of travel, good food and wine. He loved, and was loved in return, by all who knew him. Bill Hanson (Hanson Technologies, Inc.) has provided the following personal remembrances of Wally: “Wally and my family became very close. Wally was the best man at my wedding and we had lunch almost every week for 17 years. His generosity and grace was ever-present and I was fortunate to have him as a mentor at Piezo Crystal Company from 1980 to 1997. Wally’s expertise in production and engineering of quartz resonators was superb with experience spanning over 50 years. One fascinating story about Wally, which isn’t well known, is that he made blast sensors for the Manhattan project during WWII. I believe he did this in graduate school at Harvard working for Professor Charles Palache. He was assigned the task of cutting tourmaline crystals taken from German museums and making stacked blasting sensors. Wally said he cut many beautiful crystals, with many shattering even though they looked flawless. He was told the blast sensors worked perfectly measuring the explosive force of the atomic bomb. Wally was an incredible teacher and mentor who knew everyone’s name and was always a gentleman. Wally helped advance the SC cut x-raying and cutting operation at Piezo from a single blank cutting operation to slurry saw in the early 80’s. This process was used to produce over one million SC’s sold from 1984 to 2001. This same process was used in 1997 to help develop the cutting of SC’s on the wire saw, successfully eliminating angle correction. Wally’s incredible energy and intellect will be missed greatly by myself and the crystal industry.”

  • Gen Shirane

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    Gen Shirane was arguably the world’s foremost expert in the use of triple-axis neutron spectroscopy, which he used to study a broad class of problems in condensed matter physics covering ferroelectricity, magnetism, and high-TCsuperconductivity. One of a truly select few individuals, Gen maintained an intense level of activity far exceeding that of most scientists half his age; indeed, he was in the midst of collaborations with junior scientists on several papers and experiments when he died suddenly from a stroke at the age of 80 on January 16th, 2005. Gen began his career by studying the phase transitions in ferroelectric materials and later moved on to investigate the structure and dynamics of countless magnetic and superconducting materials. His return to the field of ferroelectrics near the end of his life marked a fitting end to a spectacular career that was filled with remarkable discoveries and accomplishments spanning more than half a century. Gen was born in Ashiya, Japan, just west of Kobe in 1924, and he received his Doctor of Science in Physics from the University of Tokyo in 1954. His thesis dealt with ferroelectrics, and his first publication appeared in 1947. Gen had already established an international reputation when he came to the U.S. in 1952 to continue his studies of ferroelectrics with Pepinsky at Penn State University. Gen performed his first neutron diffraction study in 1955 on PbTiO3. Recognizing the power of neutron scattering, Gen moved to Westinghouse Research Laboratories in 1957 to work at their new research reactor. When support for basic research waned at Westinghouse Gen moved on to Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1963. That was his last move. During this period he co-authored a book entitled “Ferroelectric Crystals” with Franco Jona in 1962, which is now considered a classic and is still used extensively by researchers worldwide. When the High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) at Brookhaven commenced operations in 1965 Gen turned to neutron inelastic scattering. He studied spin-wave dispersions and critical phenomena in ferromagnets, soft phonon modes and structural phase transitions in ferroelectric perovskites, spin fluctuations in low-dimensional antiferromagnets, electron-phonon coupling in superconducting Nb3Sn, spin waves in chromium, and eventually high-TC superconductors. With the demise of the HFBR in 1999, Gen chose to return to his first love, ferroelectrics, managing an active program of x-ray diffraction experiments at the National Synchrotron Light Source, located just across the street from the HFBR, as well as neutron scattering studies, performed mostly at the NIST Center for Neutron Research. His last area of research, though certainly not his least, was on the structural and dynamical properties of the relaxor ferroelectric systems PMN-xPT and PZN-xPT. If citations are a measure of a scientist’s professional stature, then Gen Shirane was a giant. His unceasing drive and enthusiasm led to the phenomenal output of more than 750 papers, which have garnered nearly 40,000 citations, and an astonishing “h-index” of 103, one of the highest of any physicist in any field. In addition to his classic text “Ferroelectric Crystals,” Gen also coauthored a book on triple-axis neutron spectroscopy in 2002. The profound respect accorded Gen’s research by the physics community is evidenced by his ranking #27 in the list of the “1000 Most Cited Physicists, 1981-1997.” Gen also ranks among the top 300 physicists in the “1,000 Contemporary Scientists Most Cited in 1965-1978.” Yet most impressive of all is the fact that Gen is one of only eight physicists to appear in both of these lists – striking testament to Gen’s sustained scientific excellence over four decades. Gen’s earlier scientific achievements were recognized in 1973 when he was awarded both the Oliver E. Buckley Prize, the most prestigious award in condensed matter science given by the American Physical Society, and the Warren Award, the most prestigious prize bestowed by the American Crystallographic Association. Gen later received his highest honor when he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1989. Gen was also a recipient of a von Humboldt award (Germany), the DOE Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics in 1989, and the Award for Outstanding Accomplishment from the Japanese Society for Neutron Science in 2003. Gen was a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Society. His lofty accolades notwithstanding, Gen’s most lasting accomplishment lies with the generations of scientists that he trained and mentored, many of whom are now international scientific leaders in their own right. Gen enjoyed working with young scientists and was famous for pushing these young researchers extremely hard. Of course, Gen was highly competitive in everything he did, whether it was performing a triple-axis experiment or playing tennis or poker. He would often ask postdoctoral candidates whether or not they played poker during their job interviews, and his eyes would twinkle if they said no, but that they were willing to learn. He kept a copy of “The Education of a Poker Player” by Herbert O. Yardley on hand for just such occasions. Gen is survived by his wife Sakae, well known for her kindness and hospitality while entertaining many Brookhaven visitors at Gen and Sakae’s home in Bellport, NY, and for her love of music and ability to play the piano beautifully. Gen is also survived by his two sons, Haruo and Tatsuo, their wives, and three grandchildren. He will be remembered by his family, friends, and everyone he worked with, each through different memories that define Gen as a man of integrity, a good friend, and one of the greatest scientists in the field of physics and neutron scattering. His passing marks the end of an era. (Contributor: Peter M. Gehring)