Hilton Glavish - PhD
Physicist Hilton Glavish is noted worldwide for his major contribution to the high technology semiconductor industry. He graduated with a PhD in Physics from The University of Auckland in 1968 after developing an atomic beam source of polarised ions for use in the study of spin angular momentum effects in nuclear reactions.
Hilton's entrepreneurial flair was apparent even then, having formed in 1966 a company to manufacture nuclear equipment, particularly the polarised ion sources which he and others had designed. ANAC Ltd (Auckland Nuclear Accessory Company) was one of New Zealand's first high technology companies, and it exported to many prestigious overseas universities and institutes, including Stanford, Yale, Rutgers, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and CERN, Geneva.
In 1970, Hilton joined the Physics Faculty at Stanford University, California where, while teaching quantum mechanics and nuclear physics, he also became an acknowledged expert on ion beams and the complex electromagnets required to control them. He was a consultant on many major projects, including assisting CERN Europe in the development of an intense polarised ion source, and working with Princeton University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory on the US Department of Energy Fusion programme.
Using his consulting experience, Hilton capitalised on the high technology semi-conductor boom, designing systems used in the manufacture of large scale semi-conductor integrated circuits such as computer, logic array, and memory chips. In 1988, he formed Zimec Ltd, Nevada, and continued to develop new technologies to meet the requirements for implant uniformity and precision control of manufacture of smaller and faster processor chips.
Today, the major chip manufacturers throughout the world use Hilton's patented technology and implanter designs. Much of the high technology manufacturing of magnets, designed by Hilton, has been done in New Zealand by ANAC until 1982, and then by his associate Bill Buckley of Buckley Systems, making a significant contribution to export earnings.
In 2004, Hilton and Bill Buckley endowed the Buckley-Glavish Chair in Physics to enable expansion of geophysics research effort into a problem of global significance, with the first appointee to apply physics to the understanding of global climate change.
Hilton received a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005.
