He invented insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) that saves energy.
By Raif Karerat
An Indian American scientist has been awarded Russia’s top technology award in honor of his work in energy efficiency.
B. Jayant Baliga is being recognized as the inventor of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), which he developed while working at the General Electrical research & development center in New York state in 1983.
The IGBT switches energy hundreds of thousands of times a second, raising the efficiency of any equipment manifold, according to the Indo-Asian News Service. The technology Baliga created brought about a revolution in energy management and significant savings in terms of both money and resources.
“Every equipment from your refrigerator to lights to motor vehicles has the need to use energy efficiently. If you take away the IGBT today, almost everything will come to a standstill,” Baliga told IANS on the eve of receiving the award in St. Petersburg, which was to be presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Professor Baliga, who now teaches at the North Carolina university as “distinguished university professor,” said the invention has possibly saved the world around $24 trillion by raising energy efficiency.
He said every motor today is at least 40 percent more efficient, the light bulb like the CFL is better by almost 75 percent and a motor vehicle saves over 10 percent fuel because of his invention.
Baliga has authored or edited 18 books and over 500 scientific articles. He has been granted 120 U.S. Patents, and The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has recognized him numerous times, most recently with the Lamme Medal at Whitehall Palace in London, according to N.C. State University.
Previously, Scientific American magazine included him among the “Eight Heroes of the Semiconductor Revolution” when commemorating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the transistor, and last year he received the highest American technology prize from President Barack Obama.
A U.S. citizen since the turn of the millennium, he now has very little connection to India and does not travel to his home country much, reported IANS.
“Top scientists that I meet always ask me, why has India not recognized your achievement,” Baliga said. “I tell them that perhaps my country does not know about what I did.”
Baliga earned his Bachelor’s in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras in 1969 before arriving in the United States, where he earned both an M.S. and a Ph.D from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.