Faculty Profile: Ken Vickers

Ken Vickers joined our faculty on April 1, 1998, as Research Professor and Director of the NSF-supported Arkansas Center for Electronic-photonic Materials Innovation (ACEMI). His has had an active first year. He created an interdisciplinary Master of Science program in microelectronics-photonics and recruited 14 students into it, created an MS Degree in Applied Physics, created (with Dr. John Todd of the Management School) a new course called "Intra/entrepreneurship of Technology," and co-authored a successful $2.1 million NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) proposal, not to mention additional grant proposals that are still pending.

In appointing Professor Vickers to our faculty, the Department of Physics welcomes back one of its own. Ken received his BS degree with High Honors from our department in 1976, and his MS degree from our department in 1978.

Since 1978, Vickers has had extensive management experience in integrated circuit manufacturing at Texas Instruments (TI). During 1980-89 he was Engineering Section Manager of a TI integrated circuits plant in Sherman, Texas, where he managed sections in plasma, diffusion, physical vapor deposition, photolithography, ion implant, and epitaxial silicon growth. During 1991-98, he was the Engineering Manager of this plant, managing a group of one hundred technologists with an annual budget of over nine million dollars. He also chaired two worldwide, inter-factory improvement teams formed to manage TI improvements. In 1997, these teams implemented a worldwide knowledge distribution database to assure rapid problem solution propagation throughout the company.

Professor Vickers was recognized as a technical leader within TI, being elected by his technical peer group to Member Group Technical Staff (top 20% of technologists in TI), to Senior Member Technical Staff (top 8% of technologists in TI), and then to Technical Manager after promotion to Engineering Manager. He served as Chairman of the Sherman Site Technical Council during his last five years at TI. He received 23 patents in field emission display technology and process control methodology, as sole author of 11 of these, principle author of 4, and contributing author of 8.

In the international arena, Professor Vickers served a one-year assignment as co-manager for an advanced integrated-circuit technology startup at TI's plant in Freising, Germany. He also served on the TI Silicon Wafer Procurement Team, which required extensive travel in Europe and Japan. As chairmen of the worldwide teams, he organized annual meetings of all team members that were held in both the U.S. and overseas.

Vickers has a long-term interest in public school outreach programs, an interest that began during his graduate education at the University of Arkansas. As a graduate teaching assistant, he taught three semesters of the lab-based course Physical Science for Elementary Teachers (PSET). Former Professors Glen Clayton and Richard Anderson created this course in 1974 as part of the Student Science Training Program that they developed for future public school teachers. Regretably, and despite enthusiasm for the program from students and the College of Education, the course and the entire program were terminated in 1977 due to pressures resulting from the University's increased emphasis upon research, and to decreasing NSF support. Professor Vickers has also served for nine years on the Callisburg Independent School District Board of Trustees and for eight years was Chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board for Murray State College in Tishimingo, Oklahoma. His continued personal involvement in K-12 education, triggered during the PSET course, is direct evidence that the ultimate goals of training efforts such as PSET will be effective in the K-12 science reforms that our nation so dearly needs.

Vickers moved to the University as ACEMI Director in order to create a fully interdisciplinary educational approach to working in solid state devices, an approach that will comprise science, engineering, and business perspectives. ACEMI supports interdisciplinary research in laser light and its interaction with solid state/quantum materials and devices. The outcome will be a better understanding of microelectronic-photonic materials; the creation of high-performance, miniaturized devices and systems made from these materials; and an understanding of the economics that affect successful introduction of these devices and systems into industry and the community. ACEMI will include faculty from the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and of Engineering, as well as cooperative research with industrial partners. ACEMI students will take courses in engineering, science, and business to gain the full spectrum of skills needed to make good decisions in high tech industry. Students from any BS science or engineering program will be qualified to enter ACEMI.

The Center's faculty and post-doc staff from the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering will lead the ACEMI research efforts. Students will begin working with staff in their research laboratories within days of their enrollment at the University. Entering students will first complete an interdisciplinary research-based MS Degree in Microelectronics-Photonics, a degree that will be highly marketable for career opportunities in the development and manufacturing of high tech materials and devices. Students interested in continuing for a PhD will choose between a departmental-based degree or a Microelectronics-Photonics degree. Students wishing to pursue this ACEMI interdisciplinary PhD path can now apply for a five year IGERT grant for living expenses, tuition, research materials, travel, and computer. These support grants may start as early as June 1999.