Charles Helms

Charles R. Helms is a retired professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University whose career spanned the experimental study of solid surfaces and semiconductor interfaces. Helms received his Hertz Fellowship in 1970 and completed his doctorate in solid state physics at Stanford, where his dissertation examined photoemission studies of the oxidation of strontium and cerium — experimental surface science using electron spectroscopy to probe how metals react with oxygen. He spent his career at Stanford, eventually reaching emeritus status as a professor. His work on silicon oxide and related interfaces was influential in semiconductor device physics.