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Robert Huggins

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Emeritus

BioProfessor Huggins joined Stanford as Assistant Professor in 1954, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1958, and to Professor in 1962.

His research activities have included studies of imperfections in crystals, solid-state reaction kinetics, ferromagnetism, mechanical behavior of solids, crystal growth, and a wide variety of topics in physical metallurgy, ceramics, solid state chemistry and electrochemistry. Primary attention has recently been focused on the development of understanding of solid state ionic phenomena involving solid electrolytes and mixed ionic-electronic conducting materials containing atomic or ionic species such as lithium, sodium or oxygen with unusually high mobility, as well as their use in novel battery and fuel cell systems, electrochromic optical devices, sensors, and in enhanced heterogeneous catalysis. He was also involved in the development of the understanding of the key role played by the phase composition and oxygen stoichiometry in determining the properties of high temperature oxide superconductors.

Topics of particular recent interest have been related to energy conversion and storage, including hydrogen transport and hydride formation in metals, alloys and intermetallic compounds, and various aspects of materials and phenomena related to advanced lithium batteries.

He has over 400 professional publications, including three books; "Advanced Batteries", published by Springer in 2009, "Energy Storage", published by Springer in 2010, and Energy Storage, Second Edition in 2016.