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COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIAL; III-V SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIAL. Expert (prefers Ave) began his work on compound semiconductors in the early days of their development. He did some of the pioneering work on photoeffects, electrical and thermal transport, and scattering in GaAs as well as in Ge-Si alloys and Bi-Sb alloys. For this work, Ave was awarded the RCA Laboratories Outstanding Research Achievement Award. His work included thermoelectric and thermomagnetic effects: the phenomena and their applications to cooling and to power generation (in the Voyager space probes).

Subsequently, as a Visiting Professor at Princeton, Ave's interest focused on surface properties of GaAs and GaAlAs semiconductors. Upon joining ITT, he assumed responsibility for the development of photonic active components for fiber-optics. These included injection lasers, LEDs and avalanche photodiodes, the first of GaAs/GaAlAs, and then InP/InGaAsP.

Ave managed the changeover from growth by liquid-phase epitaxy (LPE) to epitaxial metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The latter technology had its primary application in the growth of GaAs/GaAlAs photocathodes, yet it was also used to demonstrate the fabrication of LEDs.

PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY; PHOTONICS R&D MANAGEMENT. Ave was responsible for developing the various active components (injection lasers, LEDs, and avalanche photodiodes) and passive components (various couplers and cable terminations) for fiber optic communication. Special mention should be made of a long-wavelength edge-emitting InP/InGaAsP LED developed by Ave at ITT. For several years it was the fastest such LED and launched the highest power into single-mode fibers and was installed in a number of systems around the world.

NIGHT-VISION IMAGE TUBE; PHOTOEMISSION; PHOTOCATHODE; MICROCHANNEL PLATE. While still responsible for fiber optics components, Ave involved himself directly to solve critical problems of bonding GaAs photocathodes to the glass face plates. His analysis of the stresses, followed by experimental verification, resulted in a patented new controlled process that facilitated ITT becoming the technical leader in the development and production of Generation III GaAs photocathodes and night vision tubes. Subsequent changes conceived and implemented by Ave (and a team under him), resulted in a series of patents on very precise control of the temperature required during the 'heat cleaning' step in the fabrication of the photocathode. The introduction of this new manufacturing step led to a considerable enhancement of the product yield of photocathodes. This process, using the temperature dependence of the bandgap, found numerous other applications. It earned Ave the ITT Worldwide Corporate Gold Quality Team Award.

Ave also conceived of placing a frame-transfer CCD inside the tube immediately behind the photocathode, eliminating both the microchannel plate and the phosphor screen, and displaying the image on a monitor. The feasibility of this was demonstrated and published in 1992.

SINGLE-CRYSTAL THIN FILM; SINGLE CRYSTAL GROWTH. Ave is knowledgeable of the epitaxial growth of single-crystal thin films and their chemical and structural characterization. He has grown such compound semiconductor films by various epitaxial methods and characterized their composition by ESCA, Auger, microprobe, and EDX techniques. He measured their crystallinity and residual stresses by X-ray diffractometry and topography.