C&EN talks with Peter Trefonas, photolithography innovator

Abstract

If Peter Trefonas had pursued an early fascination with computer programming, he might never have played a role in the 67 patents listing him as an inventor—mostly for photolithography chemistry used to fabricate circuitry in computer chips. As an undergraduate at the University of New Orleans in the late 1970s, “I made some pretty good money” writing and selling computer games, Trefonas says. One, for the early TRS-80 personal computer, was the game “Worm,” in which a player controls a line as it grows in length and becomes an obstacle. “I was fascinated with coding, logic, manipulating numbers, and graphics,” Trefonas says. But he also liked chemistry. To complete his undergraduate degree he decided he would have to focus on what mattered most to him: chemistry, and what it could do for humanity. His enthusiasm for chemistry blossomed into a lifelong romance with photochemistry and microelectronics. Because of it, on