Ph.D. (Chemistry), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1976
B.S. (Chemistry), State University of New York at Stony Brook,1971
Dr.
Silver is Vice President and co-founder of Southwest Sciences, Inc. His principal
fields of research include gas sensing, kinetics and molecular dynamics, with
applications in atmospheric sciences, combustion, and materials research.
He is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society,
the Combustion Institute, the American Geophysical Union, and the Research
Society of Sigma Xi. His previous experience includes seven years on the scientific
staff of Aerodyne Research, Inc., where he was a Principal Research Scientist
and Co-Director of the Center for Chemical and Environmental Physics. Before
that, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Visiting Staff Member at
the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Dr. Silver is deeply involved in the development of compact, rugged, laser-based gas sensors for industrial use. These low power devices use digital signal processors for unattended operation. Application areas include biomedical testing, monitoring of plant physiology, semiconductor processing and atmospheric sensing. Dr. Silver is also one of the co-inventors of ionization energy modulated mass spectrometry (IEMMS), which promises to substantially improve the capability for measuring mixing fractions of gases in complex systems.
In the area of combustion, Dr. Silver has recently been active in using diode laser wavelength modulation techniques to measure concentrations and temperatures of combustion species under microgravity conditions. These studies include the detection of trace neutral and radical species in gas diffusion jets, ring vortices, and candle flames. He has developed models to describe the thermal deNOx process, and in conjunction with this effort, performed kinetic measurements and product analyses of the reactions critical to this process.
In the area of atmospheric sciences, Dr. Silver is active in developing laser-based detection methods for and in measurement of trace atmospheric gases, most notably, water vapor. One result of this research is the development of a stand-alone hygrometer for airborne measurements. Previous work includes developing the computer control for a laser-based airborne gas spectrometer for NCAR, measuring reaction rate constants for metal species of meteoric origin important in the ozone chemistry of the atmosphere, and studying translational-to-rotational energy transfer processes which are crucial to describing the emission signatures of high altitude rocket plumes.
In the field of materials research, Dr. Silver is involved in the application of laser detection methods for in situ monitoring of gas phase species important in chemical vapor deposition and plasma etching of semiconductors. The outcome of this research is an instrument capable of sub-part-per-billion detection of moisture in process gases.
Dr. Silver has long studied the basic dynamic properties of atoms and molecules. He has improved flow tube methods used to measure temperature-dependent gaseous diffusion coefficients of radical species and has applied this technique to atomic sodium and potassium. In addition, he has investigated the properties of electronic energy transfer in sodium, with potential applications in chemical laser development.
Dr. Silver is an author of 52 Publications, holds 10 Patents, and has
2 Patents Pending. jsilver@swsciences.com
Contact Information
e-mail info@swsciences.com