Inventor to Discuss Electric Cars, Solar Shingles on Oct. 22 October 16, 1998 By Vicki L. Kroll Stanford R. Ovshinsky, a self-taught physicist with more than 200 U.S. patents and two dictionary entries to his name, will speak at The University of Toledo on Thursday, Oct. 22, at 4 p.m. in McMaster Hall Room 1005. He will talk about electric vehicles, nickel metal hydride batteries, photovoltaics, and optical and electrical memories. His address is entitled "Fundamentals and Implications of Amorphous and Disordered Materials." Ovshinsky and his wife, Dr. Iris Ovshinsky, discovered ovonics -- the physics of amorphous and disordered materials and their applications in electronic devices in the fields of energy and information. This concept was used in the discovery of reversible electrical switching phenomena in disordered structures, known as the Ovshinksy effect, and is used in the ovonic nickel metal hydride battery, which powers laptop computers, cell phones, video cameras, and soon the first mass-produced, pollution-free electric vehicle. The husband and wife research team founded Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) Inc. in Troy, Mich., in 1960 to use science and technology to solve societal problems. After nearly four decades of investigations, their work has gained worldwide attention and support from heavy-hitting manufacturing companies. Ovonic Battery Co., a subsidiary of ECD, is developing batteries for electric vehicles and is manufacturing these batteries in a joint venture with General Motors. Robert Stempel, former chair and CEO of General Motors Corp., and Lee Iacocca, the retired chair and chief executive of Chrysler Corp., are promoting the transportation of the future. Stempel is ECD chairman and Iacocca is chairman of EV Global Motors Co., a Los Angeles maker of electric bicycles. Electric cars produced this year can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in eight seconds and travel 160 miles before needing a recharge, which takes about 15 minutes. "We're making the car of the future, and I'm having a hell of a lot of fun," Ovshinsky said in a January 1998 interview. "We're not going to replace oil. We're just going to make the world less dependent on it so we don't have global warming and we don't have pollution." Another environmentally sound idea Ovshinsky subscribes to is photovoltaics -- the conversion of sunlight directly into electricity. ECD is working with Canon Corp., a world leader in optical and photographic products, to manufacture solar cells. United Solar Systems Corp., a joint venture of ECD and Canon, is producing solar shingles that are rugged and lightweight and can replace traditional roofing materials. "We deal with non-depletable, non-polluting energy sources," Ovshinsky said. "People hear about solar cells, but they don't understand that we're making them by the mile for ordinary things like roofing shingles." Born in Akron, Ohio, Ovshinsky accompanied his father, a scrap metal dealer, to factories on junk-buying trips. That's where he fell in love with complex machines. After graduating from high school, he worked as a machinist and taught himself physics at night. He married Iris in 1959, and the two have been happily researching ever since. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as a life member of the Society of Automotive Engineers. His numerous honors include the Coors American Ingenuity Award, the Toyota Award for Advancement and the Diesel Gold Medal from the German Inventors Association. "We're glad to have Mr. Ovshinsky coming to UT to talk about some of today's advanced technologies in energy conversion and storage, as well as their impacts to our society," said Dr. Xunming Deng, UT assistant professor of physics and astronomy. Deng's UT research group recently became the only university group in the nation capable of fabricating high-efficiency amorphous silicon solar cells that have advanced triple-junction device structure. Ovshinsky's talk is part of a joint colloquium sponsored by the UT physics and astronomy department, the UT Center for Materials Science and Engineering, the UT College of Engineering, and the Bowling Green State University physics and astronomy department. For more information on the free, public lecture, call Deng at (419) 530-4782. Ovshinsky will be available for interviews after the colloquium.