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In Memoriam: Arpad A. Bergh, 1930-2015
Apr 30, 2015
Arpad Albert Bergh, OSA fellow and founder and president of Optoelectronics Industry Development (OIDA) passed away on 30 April 2015. He was 85 years old. Dr. Bergh was awarded the OSA Robert E. Hopkins Leadership Award in 2007 for his leadership role in establishing and leading the Optoelectronic Industries Development Association and making it the primary advocate for the optoelectronics industry in the U.S.
Dr. Bergh was born on 26 April 1930 in Cegled, Hungary to Rudolph and Irma (Kussman) Bergh. He married Maria Nagy on 4 November 1956 and they had 4 children, Peter, Paul, Arthur and Bonnie.
Arpad A. Bergh received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959 in Physical Chemistry. From 1959-1966 he was with Bell Laboratories, Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he worked on the development of semiconductor devices and on various aspects of MOS technology. In 1966 he was transferred to Murray Hill, NJ to supervise the development of GaP electroluminescent devices. Two years later he became head of the Compound Semiconductor Materials and Devices Development Department, responsible for lasers, LEDs, photodetectors and microwave devices.
When Bellcore was formed in 1983, Dr. Bergh became Division Manager of the Device Science and Technology Research Division, conducting research in photonic devices, gallium-arsenide high-speed circuits, and display devices. He retired from Bellcore in September 1994 as the Executive Director of the Applied Research Program Development Department, reporting to R. W. Lucky, Vice President of Applied Research, and became full time president of OIDA.
He held 11 patents and authored over 20 papers on semiconductor materials and devices. He co-authored the book Light-emitting Diodes (Electrical & Electronic Engineering Monographs) published by Oxford Press in 1976 and the chapter Technology Roadmap for Optical Communication – A North American Perspective in the book Femtosecond Technology: From Basie Research to Application Prospects published in 1994 and edited by O. Wada of Fujitsu Laboratories. Dr. Bergh was a fellow of the IEEE and a member of OSA, The Electrochemical Society, Society Information Display, New York Academy of Sciences and the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.
