Professor Russell Dupuis

Russell Dupuis enabled the commercial production of high-quality semiconductors. Born in the United States in 1947, he gained his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1973. After working at Texas Instruments (1973–75), he joined Rockwell International (1975–79) and was the first to demonstrate that MOCVD could be applied to high-quality semiconductor thin films and devices to produce high performance LEDs, prompting numerous companies to do the same. The most advanced white LEDs available today are produced using the same method and the technology is also used for solar cells and high frequency electronics.

Dupuis worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories (1979–86) and was a chaired professor in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas (1989 to 2003). Since then he has been a chaired professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in electrical and computer engineering and continues working on LEDs.