Clark Johnson

Mr. Johnson is a magnetics consultant and physicist working on applications for high-resolution imaging. Mr. Johnson received the BS degree in Physics and the MSEE, both from the University of Minnesota. He has spent most of his professional life working in data storage technology, primarily magnetic recording, and researching optically active electronic materials, starting with 3M Company in 1950. He has founded several high-technology companies in Minnesota, Massachusetts and Colorado. He served in 1988 as an IEEE Congressional Fellow in the House Science Committee, working primarily on high-definition systems (HDTV). He then was a consultant to Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), participating in their projects on a digital implementation of high-resolution image capture, compression, storage and display. He was assigned by ARPA to the MIT Research Program on Communications Policy.

At 3M, Mr. Johnson developed the optics analysis of retro-reflective constructions (e.g. 3M "Scotchlite"). The optics of such materials is complex as there are a number of interdependent components: glass spheres, several thin transparent coatings and a reflective layer, all with differing dimensions, indices of refraction and dispersions. Optimization for manufacturability requires a comprehensive understanding of the optics and of the manufacturing variability of the various components.

While at 3M, Mr. Johnson directed a research and development program to evaluate the possibility of an optically-based data recording system. The program included studies of photoelectrically active materials and their characteristics, such as photon sensitivity and persistence, along with techniques for recording and reading out data. He developed a functional laboratory-demo level optical recorder using multi-layered photosensitive materials.

He was a consultant to and Director of Optex, a Washington, DC based firm, developing multi-electron energy-level storage systems. The media consisted of a special material that could support multiple electron energy states; each one corresponding to a data bit. Reading and writing on this novel material was done with monochromatic light of selected wavelengths that selectively shift electronic energy states.

He is a director of several high-tech companies, a Fellow of the IEEE, holds 25 US patents, a number of foreign patents and is widely published. He worked with Richard Solomon at the University of Pennsylvania in the Program On Vision Science & Advanced Networking on the Naval Research Laboratory project on advanced imaging devices.

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