Michael PepperSend a message to

Michael Pepper

Michael Pepper

I joined Caswell in July 1969, in 1970/71 I started sharing an office with Ray and go to know him quite well. He was extremely talented and a great character, he enrolled to do an external Ph.D at Imperial College, where he got his Bachelor’s degree, and completed his experiments at Caswell fairly quickly. However as he envisaged an industrial career he was ambivalent about spending a few months writing a thesis and so carried about in his briefcase a half completed version, he carried it about for years and I wasn’t sure what happened to it in the end. He certainly couldn’t have improved on his very successful career by finishing it. He single-handedly developed the early MNOS non-volatile memory transistors, this happened more or less at the same time as Intel was created and developed their first product the FAMOS non-volatile memory which then took the available market. With hindsight Ray’s device could have been a commercial success in a different environment but funding was always an issue. Ray could have turned his hand to more basic research as together we started using the MNOS device to investigate electron localization when Sir Nevill Mott became a consultant in 1971, he thought that the device was a unique way of investigation and we started the first experiments on the topic. Although we were limited by the absence of equipment Ray figured out a way of getting results with great success. Ray became more interested in applications so his time for the more basic semiconductor work became very limited. In 1973 Nevill Mott suggested that I go to Cambridge for a “sabbatical” year to work with him, a sabbatical which turned into a stay of 37 years, nevertheless Ray and I continued to work together and I went to Caswell frequently and he visited Cambridge very often, visits which were accompanied by large lunches in excellent restaurants. We often met up at conferences in the USA which was always a pleasure. The joint arrangement which I had with Caswell and Cambridge finished in 1982 when I transferred allegiance to GEC and so didn’t see Ray after that. We had an email exchange and we intended to meet up but sadly it didn’t happen, which was more my fault than his despite my continually meaning to do so. At this age one shouldn’t delay meetings with old friends, tempus fugit. Ray was an exceptional person, he could have turned his hand to almost anything with success as with Phoenix. He built a car from kit form which roared about the lanes of Northamptonshire and was always busy renovating houses. My condolences to all his family

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