Chapter 7 Dr. James W. Mitchell 1993 Black Engineer of the Year THE
FOLLOWING ARTICLE, WRITTEN BY
MICHAEL F. KASTRE, WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN US BLACK ENGINEER & IT, CONFERENCE ISSUE 1993. James Mitchell joined Bell Labs as a member of the technical staff in 1970 after receiving his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Agricultural and Technical State University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Iowa State University at Ames. Later, he accepted the position of supervisor of the Inorganic Analysis Group, and in 1975, he was promoted to head of the department. Mitchell currently heads the Analytical Chemistry research department of Bell Laboratories. According to Robert A. Laudise, director of the Materials and Processing Research laboratory, “In the past year alone, he has been responsible for a number of important accomplishments that contribute to the increased global competitiveness of the U.S. electronics industry. Using the concept he invented, ‘on-demand’ reagent generation, which integrates turn-key chemical synthesis with real-time purification and online analysis, dangerously toxic arsine has been produced at precisely determined part per billion levels in order to produce the highest quality silicon wafers for device manufacture. A major supplier of electronic reagents is negotiating terms for the commercialization of this analytical process system.” Mitchell explains the impact on the industry: “In telecommunications, one needs materials that are extraordinarily pure. Silicon was the first example of a broadly used material where it couldn’t have trace impurities. The modern equivalent of that is optical wave-guide materials that must be even purer than the specifications we have for silicon. If the optical wave guide materials are not pure, the light pulses that you attempt to transmit through the glass fibers to carry the telecommunications will be absorbed by the impurities.”
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