Staff Spotlight: Fred Stevie

Fred Stevie is in his 20^th year as a staff member for AIF. He is responsible for X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, works with Focused Ion Beam (FIB) and helps with Confocal Raman and Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS). He enjoys working with students and hopes to make them aware of all the mistakes he has made so that they don’t repeat them. His background includes 28 years with Bell Labs (AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Agere Systems). Bell Labs was an exciting place where the person down the hall could win the Nobel Prize and that happened while he worked at Murray Hill when Philip Anderson shared the prize in physics in 1977.

Fred has worked in materials characterization for 48 years. He is the author or coauthor of over 200 publications, including books on FIB and SIMS, and holds 21 patents. His publications are frequently cited (Research Gate says just under 5000) and range from semiconductor materials to Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) sample preparation to insecticide on mosquito netting, so he is a good information resource. An early favorite paper was one that related changes in SIMS secondary ion yields to unexpected topography changes in silicon and GaAs (JVST A6, 76 (1988)). A highlight of the work at NC State is the publication of a method to quantitatively measure insecticide on mosquito netting with AIF staff members Elaine Zhou and Roberto Garcia and CDC scientist Stephen Smith (PLOS ONE 13(12): e209119 (2018)). There are over 1 billion mosquito nets in the world and this work provided for the first time a way to measure net effectiveness directly. Fred was made an AVS Fellow in 2003. He is on the Advisory Board for Surface and Interface Analysis and is an Associate Editor for Surface Science Spectra.

Fred is a lifelong tennis player but also plays pickleball and golf. He loves to sing and is a member of the Acapella Oak City Sound Chorus which holds performances at the Cary Arts Center and has participated in Regional and International Competition.

Besides performing analyses at AIF, Fred helps provide short courses in Surface Analysis, FIB, and Vacuum Technology. He also presents a course on safety for vacuum and gas cylinders. He is a member of AVS and ASM societies and helps organize our local Carolina Science Symposium which will be held at McKimmon Center on November 12 this year. Don’t miss it! Beware, Fred likes to tell jokes, so be prepared.