Early days at MRL

Abstract

Abstract For the past 40 years, Eric Cross has been the worldwide leader of the international ferroelectrics community, organising meetings, advising students and colleagues, and building up an outstanding research programme at Penn State University. This paper describes the beginnings of the Penn State programme and some of the people involved, including George Brindley, Wilhelm Buessem, Ray Pepinsky and Rustum Roy. Three important events in its history were the work on multilayer capacitors with Erie Technological Products and Sprague Electric leading to the formation of the NSF Center for Dielectric Studies; the longstanding programme on piezoelectric transducers sponsored by the ONR which led to new families of composite ferroelectrics, to phased array ultrasound, and to near perfect electromechanical coupling factors; and the electrostriction measurements on relaxor ferroelectrics which played a key role in the development of reliable active optics systems. These were exciting times, and I am proud to have been a member of the Penn State ferroelectrics group and to express my gratitude to Eric Cross for his advice, leadership and friendship. He has a great mind and a big heart.