Biography, John B. Goodenough
John Goodenough was born of U.S. parents
in Jena, Germany, in 1922. He received
a BA in mathematics from Yale University
in 1943. After serving as a meteorologist
for the USAAF in World War II, he obtained
a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago
in 1952. From 1952 to 1976 he was at
the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology where he first helped
to develop the ferrite-core coincident-current
memory critical to the development of the
digital computer and headed research groups
in Magnetism and in Electronic Materials. It
was during that period that he wrote his
two books Magnetism and the Chemical
Bond and Les oxydes des métaux
de transition.
From
1976 to 1986, he was Professor and Head of
the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory in Oxford,
England, where his research concentrated
on new materials for energy conversion. He
developed the concept of framework structures for
alkali-ion solid electrolytes and obtained
the basic patents for layered and spinel
oxides as cathodes for lithium secondary
batteries. He also worked in photoelectrolysis
for solar-energy conversion and catalytic
electrodes for fuel cells.
Since 1986, he has held a chair
in the Materials Science and Engineering Center
of the University of Texas at Austin where
he has identified the LiFePO4 cathode for the
Li+-ion battery, developed new electrolyte
and electrode materials for the solid oxide
fuel cell, and contributed significantly to
our understanding of the unusual physical phenomena
encountered at the crossover from localized
to itinerant electronic behavior.
