Elias Burstein; was professor of physics at Penn

Elias Burstein, 99, formerly of Penn Valley, a longtime professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania and a distinguished scientist whose research set the stage for the development of silicon semiconductors used in computer chips, died June 17, of heart failure at Beaumont in Bryn Mawr.

In 1958, he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania, where in 1982 he became the Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics. He retired in 1988 as professor emeritus.

At Penn's Department of Physics and Astronomy, he was one of the first to use lasers to conduct fundamental research on semiconductors and insulators. He came up with a way to increase the semiconductivity of the stable element silicon by combining it with impurities. The advance allowed the silicon to carry more charges than in the past, making it more efficient and thereby improving the performance of the computer chip.

"He's really more of a basic scientist in understanding the properties of silicon and how to manipulate the properties of silicon, the material that underlies all computer technology," said his Penn colleague A.T. Charlie Johnson. "This has paved the way for the modern computer chips that we have today."

Perhaps Professor Burstein's most high-profile contribution locally was as a member of the interdisciplinary team that in 1961 created the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter at the University of Pennsylvania. The lab has hosted the annual Eli Burstein Lecture in Materials Science since 1994.

"This is one of the leading labs in the country," Johnson said. He said the lab has progressed from doctoring semiconductors to creating special carbon materials, and now is engaged in nanotechnology, the manipulation of individual molecules and atoms.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Professor Burstein graduated from public high school there. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Brooklyn College in 1938, and a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Kansas in 1941.

He took graduate courses in chemistry and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in physics at Catholic University, but his doctoral studies were interrupted in 1945 during the last days of World War II.

Given a 4F draft classification, he couldn't serve in combat, but his skills were needed on war-related projects at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. He remained there until 1958, becoming a member, then head, of the lab's crystal branch, and then head of its semiconductors branch. His specialty was exploring the optical physics of condensed matter, otherwise known as solid state materials.

Professor Burstein taught and published widely. At various times between 1967 and 1996, he was a visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine; Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel; University of Parma in Italy; Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden; and the University of California, Berkeley.

Although he never completed his doctoral degree, he received honorary doctorates from Chalmers Institute of Technology in 1981, Brooklyn College in 1985, Emory University in 1994, and Ohio State University in 1999.

He was a member of the Franklin Institute's Committee on Science and the Arts starting in 1995. He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and also of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He was founding editor of the international professional journal Solid State Communications. Over the course of his career, Professor Burstein mentored more than 30 doctoral and postdoctoral students.

"He influenced their careers, and collaborated with hundreds of scientists around the world," his family wrote in a tribute.

Professor Burstein loved music, especially classical guitar and opera. After moving in 2007 to Beaumont at Bryn Mawr, he initiated and ran an opera/musical theater program for the residents.

Because as an experimental physicist he had had to invent and build the equipment needed to carry out some experiments, he was a natural at home repairs, using whatever was available.

He and his family vacationed for 50 years in the northeast Pennsylvania community of Eagles Mere, where he loved to sail on a lake in small, swift boats.

He traveled many times to Europe, Israel, and Japan as part of his work, and became enamored of Japanese culture, including art, music, film, food, and literature. He and his wife had a small Japanese-style wing built onto their house in Penn Valley. It included a guest house and hot tub room, furnished and decorated with Japanese scrolls, mats, and a futon.

Professor Burstein outlived his three siblings and, in doing so, became the family patriarch. Many of his younger family members said that he and his wife, Rena Benson Burstein, a retired career counselor, acted as mentors to them.

"He was different and distinctive in every way," said his daughter, Mimi Burstein. "He was a very enthusiastic person, especially about music and the arts. He collected things, and he was quirky.

"He would get excited thinking about the way the mind works, in discussing intuition," she said. "A lot of his work was done in discussion with others. He liked to bat ideas around and shoot the scientific breeze."

Besides his daughter and his wife of 74 years, he is survived by daughters Joanna Mitro and Sara Donna, and two grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. July 12, at Beaumont at Bryn Mawr, 601 N. Ithan Ave. Plans for a memorial event at Penn are pending.

bcook@phillynews.com

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