Jerry M. Woodall

Biography

A U.S. National Medal of Technology Laureate and a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette,Indiana, Dr. Jerry M.Woodall changed the way research is conducted in compound semiconductors. His contributions, in turn,have sparked the successful commercialization of a broad range of new opto-electric and high-speed devices.

Earlier in his career, as a staff researcher at the IBM Research Division in Yorktown Heights, New York, Dr. Woodall developed the liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) of the gallium arsenide (GaAs) high-efficiency IR light emitting diodes used in remote control and data-link applications. He also pioneered the use of liquid phase epitaxy of gallium aluminum arsenide (GaAIAs) and the GaAIAs/GaAs heterojunction, which he used to fabricate super-bright red LEDs, high-efficiency solar cells and the heterojunction bipolar transistor used in cellular telephones. He tapped this same technology to create the pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistor widely used in devices and circuits, which offers highly uniform thickness, excellent repeatability, low maintenance, high throughput and low cost of ownership, among other advantages.

An IEEE Fellow, he has received the IEEE Jack A. Morton Award and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, five major IBM Research Division awards and 30 IBM Invention Achievement Awards. He is the founder and first chairman of the Energy Technology Division of the Electrochemical Society and a recipient of its Edward Goodrich Acheson Award.