Stan passed away peacefully at home on October 17, a month short of his 90th birthday. His wife Rosa, children Ben, Harvey, Dale, Robin, Steven, Angela, Vicki, and grandchildren Natasha, Noah, Sylvie, Pablo, Olivia, Norah, and brother Herb grieve the loss to the world of our deeply loved husband, father, grandfather, brother and outstanding contributor to humanity. His courage and leadership from the early days of the labor, civil rights and peace movements, continued in his lifelong dedication to a just society for all.
Universally credited with the development of the field of amorphous semiconductors, Stan was a brilliant, self-educated physicist and inventor, who with Rosa and his late wife Iris, lived his beliefs daily by using science and technology to create a more beautiful and better world. His many inventions including thin film solar panels, the nickel metal hydride battery which enabled hybrid vehicles, and phase change memory devices are examples of his pioneering contributions to the field of sustainable energy and innovative information technology.
Private burial will be at the Workmen’s Circle Cemetery in Akron, Ohio on Sunday, October 21.
Donations in Stan’s honor can be made to:
ACLU of Michigan
Attention: Paul Jeden
2966 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, MI 48201
(313) 578-6813
pjeden@aclumich.org
or
The Ovshinsky Student Fund
c/o Darlene Logan, Director of Development
The American Physical Society
1 Physics Ellipse
College Park, MD 20740
https://www.aps.org/memb-sec/donation/DonationFunds.cfm
(Ovshinsky Student Fund is listed with Special Projects)
We invite you to contribute stories, memories and photos of Stan to this site.
Tributes
Leave a tributeHe not only contributed to the science and technology, but also raised a generation of technologists, business leaders and humanitarians.
We miss you Stan.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/spacewalkers-andrew-morgan-christina-koch-assisted-by-commander-luca-parmitano
I miss both of them.
This past year, I have missed him mre than ever because I started a new battery company; he would have been very proud. I will honor him by hangi his portrait in the main lobbies of the two facilities of this nee company American Battery Solutions Inc located in MI & OH. OH is where Stan spent his early life and MI were he spent his entire creative career.
Let remember some of his inventions that make our lives better every day.
The discovery of the Amorphous Silicon Transistor made possible the fabrication of flat screens, the "tubes" that limit the size and weight of TV screens gone and now they could be made “paper thin”. The mobile phones are now in our pockets, and the laptops in our bags.
A rewriteable CD disc, with α chalcogenide alloy film as the active material, you can store music, data and later you are able to erase it and write something else.
Electric cars, hybrids with gasoline or hydrogen, came out on the streets.
I am very lucky to have met him and worked with him.
Here is the link to the Amazon page for the book.
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Saw-Tomorrow-Inventions/dp/026203753X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527387014&sr=1-1&keywords=the+man+who+saw+tomorrow&dpID=51u32ibo8UL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
Bob Kaplan
My stepfather Stan Ovshinsky, or Standad to me, was an amazing blaze of energy which brightened and improved our world in so many ways.
It is almost like few days ago that I am talking to you discussing new approach to advanced PV device across the table at Institute office.
We all miss you, Stan but you are living in our heart and memory.
Jabo, Sevilla, Andalucía.
We need to start spreading information about his solar panels (where to buy them, how to install them, etc.) here in the United States. He said on one of his presentations that it was a shame that none of his solar panels was sold in America; who buys all his production? Asian countries... it is a shame.
He spent all his life, all his research here in America for us to be the leaders in the world in sun/hydrogen energy and all we do is cry for the good man that left us...
God bless you Stanford Ovshinsky...
Leave a Tribute
Stan’s sketches
Stan was a person with a lot of talents! He could be a very good painter. His sketches covered any corner of his notebooks and Iris was collected all of them. At the end were about 8 folders and a bunch of notebooks, full of sketches. All characters were different and I have the feeling that his emotions were reflected on them.
Stan's birthday party speech
Stan's witty humor, love for Rosa, for his family, friends and his positive look on life through the eyes of an inner child shines through this footage...
Stanford R. Ovshinsky
Stanford R. Ovshinsky (LCD)