DON MURPHY ’64
CHARGED with innovation
Written by DOUG MCINNIS
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The lithium ion battery has liberated technology. But four decades ago, these high-capacity rechargeable batteries were no more than an idea in the minds of a few dozen scientists, in- cluding Bell Labs scientist Don Murphy ’64. “By 1975, I had a working model of a lithium ion battery in my lab,” says Murphy, a member of the Bell Labs team that made the breakthrough. At the time, the lithium ion battery had a limited horizon.
Today’s battery-hungry gadgets weren’t on the horizon, and the battery prototypes were primitive. “When we started, we were thinking of using them in cordless phones,” Murphy says. Fortunately, batteries follow their own version of Moore’s
Law, which predicts how quickly the capacity of integrated cir- cuits will double. “Instead of doubling every 18 months (as chip capacity does), it doubles every 10 years or more for batteries,” says Murphy. He predicts the capacity of lithium ion batteries
“As battery capacity grows, electric cars could be powered with fewer batteries.”
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. . As battery capacity grows, electric cars could be powered
with fewer batteries, says Murphy. That would save money. It would also cut vehicle weight, increasing the number of miles per charge. Alternatively, the number of batteries could be kept at current levels, boosting the distance the cars could travel with- out recharging. None of this would have come about without lots of time- consuming trial and error, as the Bell Labs team tested numerous materials that could be used to build the battery. But Murphy found a way to speed that process. “The single most important thing I did was come up with some benchtop chemical reactions that you could do in a beaker that allowed us to mimic what would happen in a battery,” says Murphy. HMC prepared him well for his laboratory career. He
can still increase four or five times using the existing framework of theoretical knowledge. But the rate of change could accelerate as more scientists work on them. “Back in the ’70s, there were a handful of people who un- derstood this technology and a half-dozen labs around the world working on it,” he says. “Now there are hundreds of labs and thousands of people working on it, so things happen faster.”
worked two summers at Harvey Mudd doing undergraduate research with professors. He also took a psychology class that taught critical thinking. The class was given formal research pa- pers in the field and then told to tear them apart. “There is a tendency for most people to read something and believe it. This course taught us to doubt first. That (kind of thinking) goes a long way in research.” Murphy is now semi-retired. He has more time to work on his golf game, but he also continues as a consultant to small startups. One of these companies is trying to create better bat- teries. In the meantime, he benefits from the fruits of his labors. “It gives me great satisfaction every time I use a laptop or a cell phone.”
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20 Har vey Mudd College FALL/WINTER 2011
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