James W. Mitchell - 1993 Black Engineer of the Year

Chapter 7 Dr. James W. Mitchell 1993 Black Engineer of the Year

THEFOLLOWINGARTICLE, WRITTENBY MICHAEL F. KASTRE, WAS FIRSTPUBLISHEDIN 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.”

He adds: “I am really pursuing a line of materials engineering where I am looking at in situ generation chemistry and fabrication of thin films with extraordinarily high purity. When one takes excruciating care to prepare materials in states of purity that exceed those that existed previously, you find that they have extraordinary proper ties. Materials that were opaque will now be very transmissive. Materials that were easily decomposed by high voltage are now very stable. Or materials that normally were non-conducive, now become conducive by eliminating impurities.” Mitchell’s personal research is one of the cornerstones of modern trace analysis, and his work, together with that of his group, has been absolutely vital to understanding and manipulating the chemistry of electronic and optical communication materials. Without his remarkable analytical chemistry research, neither optical fibers, nor high-purity semiconductors would have advanced to their present stage.

“Substantial quality and bottom-line economic improvements of optical fiber technology is accruing from remedies resulting from Mitchell’s process analytical team’s diagnostics,” says Laudise. “This practical work is exceptionally important in view of the need to greatly enhance the global competitiveness of the U.S. optical fiber industry.” Mitchell has also directed a diamond material program. Comprehensive characterization protocols, including new thermal conductivity methods and infrared luminescence techniques, permit polycrystalline diamond materials to be quality-assured for use as heat sinks for high-power laser devices. He has been granted a key patent for the selective patterning and nucleation of diamond and has initiated new research in carbon vapor transport methods to further improve the properties of diamond. As a result of his global objectives, he has established “firsts” and received various corporate and professional awards. He is one of only a handful of Blacks to be inducted into the National Academy of Engineering and the first Black to be made a BellLabs fellow. In addition, he has received the Pharmacia Industrial Analytical Chemistry award, the Percy L. Julian Research award, and two IR-100 awards. Mitchell has also lectured internationally. In addition, he co-authored

a book called Contamination Control in Trace Analysis, published more that 60 scientific papers, and invented instruments and processes. Mitchell also served as a member of the editorial advisory boards of three international analytical chemistry journals. A native of Durham, N.C., Mitchell has a love of chemistry that goes back to his high school days. While participating in a college program for high school students, he says, a chemistry professor with a doctorate “ showed me a mathematical way of balancing equations.” This was something his high school chemistry teacher had limited knowledge about. I was just fascinated by the fact that there was order to chemistry. You didn’t have to memorize things. You could figure it out based on established rules. That demonstration showed me that chemistry was also math. So I wanted to learn as much about chemistry as I could.” The rest, of course, is history. Mitchell has excelled on the leading edge of technology at one of the world’s most prestigious research organizations. Through persistence and a dedication to education and research, he was able to rise to his current level of excellence. The eldest of five children, Mitchell is the only son of tobacco factory workers. He attended segregated schools and says, “In the era that I grew up in the South, parents did not have to be well educated to prepare their children to be well educated. All the parents had to do was send a disciplined child to school and support them when they came home.” The standards and efforts of this remarkable engineer should inspire all youth to aim high and strive to be the best. “Once I earned a doctorate degree, my decision was that I wanted to be known in the circle of the best people on earth who work in my field,” Mitchell says. He has exceeded that goal. Mitchell and his wife Jean have three children. One is in medical school, another studies microbiology, and the youngest is in high school.