In the 1967 the birth of the Laboratorio di Cibernetica of the CNR offered him the possibility to work in a joint project USA-Italy (University of Wisconsin, Madison - CNR Naples) in the field of superconductivity on the peculiar subject of the superconductive “Neuristors”. His research activity on Josephson junctions opened a wide variety of very stimulating subjects in which AB was deeply involved, ranging from the soliton propagation in “long” Josephson structures to fluctuations phenomena, from light-sensitive junctions and proximity effect to the development of innovative superconducting devices.

 

The strong interaction of AB with the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Academy of Sciences, in Moscow, characterizes a long period of his research activity with a precious merging of theoretical and experimental aspects. All this body of work converged into the famous monograph on the “Physics and Applications of the Josephson Effect”, written in collaboration with Gianfranco Paternò in 1982. This became rapidly the reference text for the Josephson effect, as documented by thousands of citations and the fact it was translated into Russian, Japanese and Chinese. In 1983, AB was awarded by the Academy of Sciences in Moscow the highest academic title of “Doctor of the Physical-Mathematical Sciences”, and later the coveted Kapitza Prize.

The discovery of high-Tc superconductors (HTS) opened new problems and perspectives. In this context, AB and his group, significantly contributed by reporting original results on the “archetype” high-Tc Josephson junctions. Of great impact were the studies on unconventional superconductivity, first developed for ”p-wave” superconductors, but definitely very inspiring for the d-wave experiments on HTS compounds, and later on the physics of HTS Josephson junctions.
 
Macroscopic quantum phenomena and “particle detectors” are the keywords and the logical paths where to bring back several relevant contributions of Antonio scattered in more than 40 years of activity. Topics of his interest ranged from the fundamentals of macroscopic quantum tunnelling to barrier penetration in nonstationary fields, to finally a project into a wider vision of macroscopic quantum phenomena in unconventional systems.

 

Antonio is universally considered not only the founder of the Superconductivity School in the Napoli area, but also as the “grande maestro” and one of the most representative physicists in Italy. He has filled very relevant positions of scientific management in Italy and participated in many international committees. He has significantly contributed to the popularization of superconductivity as a divulgator, as a professor, as a researcher and as a manager.

 

An intense wave of sympathy and friendships has arrived from all over the world testifying how his gentleness, his sense of science and his smile were a solid bridge of friendship and respect with colleagues, students and people of everyday life. This premature departure cannot be dissociated from so many years spent working together. This moment cannot be dissociated from the awareness of having had the privilege to deal with a real gentleman of science and life, a man of vision and perspective.

 

In 1956 Clyde began his work in superconducting magnets at Lawrence Livermore Lab, rising to become assistant director of the Lab’s magnetic confinement fusion program. He was active in Livermore community affairs and served on planning commissions and the city council, before being elected mayor of Livermore.

 

Livermore Lab’s fusion program at the time focused on mirror machines, in which plasma was confined by increasing gradients along magnetic field lines. Such machines required superconducting materials that could remain stable at very low temperatures while carrying very high currents and generating high magnetic fields. Livermore’s Jon Zbasnik recalls that, as part of the effort to build the Fusion Engineering Research Facility, and later the Mirror Fusion Test Facility – for which Clyde developed the “yin-yang” magnet configuration – he initiated research on niobium-tin, which is still at the  leading edge of superconducting magnet technology.

Clyde left Livermore in 1981 to join Berkeley Lab as head of the Supercon Group in the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division (AFRD), often working closely with Shlomo Caspi of Berkeley Lab’s Engineering Division. Clyde became head of the multilab engineering team that won the magnet design competition for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), whose planning efforts were based at Berkeley Lab. The SSC was canceled in 1993, but Caspi recalls that Clyde’s engineering skills and talent for management had led DOE to recognize AFRD’s strong position and unique analytical skills in the superconducting magnet field.

 

Clyde renewed his interest in niobium-tin as essential for advanced magnets when he led AFRD research toward achieving extraordinarily strong magnetic fields, beyond 10 tesla; he designed the first magnet to use windings of the material, according to Ron Scanlan, who in 1994 traded roles with Clyde and became supervisor of AFRD’s magnet group. The niobium-tin magnet they built achieved 13.6T in 1997, still a record. Today, similar magnets play an important role in AFRD’s designs for the planned Large Hadron Collider upgrade. During those years Clyde also put in place a special cabling machine at AFRD, which served as a prototype for industry and continues to supply cable to several DOE labs today.

 

At this time, as Scanlan recalls, Clyde also developed a solution to a major problem limiting the performance of accelerator magnets: the movement of structural elements under the tremendous forces generated by the magnets themselves, which can lead to disastrous “quenches.” His solution was a system of keys and bladders filled with liquid metal to prestress critical components. Refined by Shlomo Caspi, the bladder and key design made possible a series of record-breaking superconducting magnets built at Berkeley Lab.

 

Beginning in 1995, Clyde developed the “superbend” insertion devices that allowed the Advanced Light Source, built to optimize soft x-ray production, to extend operations well into the hard x-ray region, a requirement for protein-crystallography beamlines that are among the ALS’s most productive, according to AFRD’s Alan Jackson. Developed in cooperation with an industrial firm, Wang NMR, the Superbends are unique to the ALS among the world’s synchrotron light sources, which now has several of them.

 

Also in 1995, Clyde applied the bladder and key concept to his design for the superconducting magnet structure of a new kind of ion source for the 88-Inch Cyclotron, proposed by Claude Lyneis of the LBNL Nuclear Science Division. Called VENUS (”versatile ECR ion source for nuclear science”), the new source would be capable of producing high currents of ions, from hydrogen all the way to uranium, but required the highest magnetic fields ever achieved in this kind of ion source. Lyneis notes that the outstanding performance of VENUS, completed in 2003, was a key factor in enabling the rare ion beam facility now under construction at Michigan State University.

 

Clyde continued to work on both the Superbends and VENUS after his 1996 retirement and subsequent rehire as a consultant, continuing part time at the Lab until 2008. His lifelong enthusiasm for long-distance bicycle trips, backpacking, and cross-country skiing continued, as did his passion for travel abroad and for theater.

 

Clyde is warmly remembered by his many associates over the years as “a true gentleman” (Alan Jackson); “a very sincere, very kind, and very warm person, with great devotion to his work” (Bert Wang); “my mentor, supervisor, and friend for over 25 years, and one of the best people I have known” (Ron Scanlan); “a gentle person, soft-spoken and a great traveling companion [who] liked people and was eager to help, especially young people at the beginning of their career” (Shlomo Caspi); and many others, including Claude Lyneis, who put together the LBNL remembrance.

 

Ray's first employer was the Ohio State University, where he was a Research Associate (1966-1967) and assistant Professor (1967-1972). During the summer of 1970, Wheatley asked Ray to become SHE's first president, but he declined, wanting to keep his faculty position. However, in 1972 he moved to San Diego, CA to join SHE as its Senior Physicist, becoming SHE's Manager of R&D. Ray's work with Georgio Frossati at the Centre de Recherches sur les Très Basses Températures in Grenoble, France led to the development of SHE's 400 and 500 series of dilution refrigerators that achieved temperatures as low as 2.9 mK.
 
In 1982, Ray became an independent consultant at an impressive number of institutions and companies, including Quantum Design, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, BioMagnetic Technologies, Aerojet General, Physical Dynamics, GWR Instruments, General Atomics, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, R. G. Hansen & Associates, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Hughes Aircraft, Maxwell Laboratories, CryoFab Australia, CeramPhysics, Applied Superconetics, Imotron, the University of California at San Francisco's Physics Research Laboratory, Ball Aerospace, Advanced CryoMagnetics, Tristan Technologies, Conductus, Toshiba America Magnetic Imaging, Cryogen, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Alpha Magnetics, International Cryogenics, Primex Physics, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Aerie Partners among others.  Ray founded his own company, the Cryogenic Designs, Inc., of San Diego, of which he was the President and CEO. One of its products was coil-foil which is used in many high performance non-magnetic liquid helium dewars for biomagnetic measurements.  It became also Ray’s consulting base.
 
During his career, Ray published over 30 refereed scientific publications in the field of low temperature physics and technology, including papers on low temperature properties of matter, superconductivity, NMR, dewars, SQUID instruments, sensors and cryogenic refrigeration. He was also granted 30 patents for his inventions related to the development of diverse devices such as the stabilized point contact toroidal rf SQUID, vapor-shielded metal and non-metal helium dewars, integration of cryocoolers and storage dewars to prolong hold time (including the first 1000 day hold-time liquid helium dewar), ELF SQUID receivers, towable horizontal dewars, ultra-low temperature dilution refrigerators and the variable temperature superconducting susceptometer. Ray's experience included also the development of custom designed cryogenic systems, scientific programming, level detectors, variable temperature ground based satellite coolers and cascade JT refrigerators. He was also involved in design of MRI magnets for both superconducting and permanent magnet coils, active and passive shielded magnet systems, magnet shim coil design and iron placement to produce homogenous fields.
 
Ray's honors included: 3M Teaching Fellow, Alfred E. Sloan Research Fellow, and Membership on the U.S. National Committee for the International Institute of Refrigeration.
 
Ray was a special person with many interests. The long list included photography, science fiction, astronomy, magic tricks, guns, board games, poker, orchids, esoteric plants, old cars (Lincoln continental, Mustang), dressing up for certain holidays (Halloween or Comic-Con), model planes and model helicopters, motorcycling, flying, collecting old and diverse things such as angel collections, coins, juke boxes, old autos, collection of buttons, and Star Wars. He loved swap meets and would share his special finds with other collectors. He had a certain "old codger reputation". He bought his last motorcycle about 1 year ago before passing away.
 
He had also an interest in computers, however, he continued arguing and fighting with them to make them do what he wanted to do regardless of computer limitations. Eventually, he would call for help. But as soon as he would go back to work on it, the same things would happen again.
 
Ray never had an unkind word to say about anyone. He loved his two sons and his friends. He would do anything to help them and assisted in solving their problems in his own special style. His last months were difficult due to a plethora of health problems. He was prepared for his departure and settled in advance all details of it, including funeral and celebration instructions.  Ray passed away on March 23, 2011.  His ashes were dispersed on the Pacific Ocean from a cryogenic dewar.
 

(The remembrance above is based on information, documents and photos supplied by Mrs. Marilyn Hauck.  Additional input and/or revisions were provided by: William Black, Robert Fagaly, Eugene Hirschkoff, Douglas Paulson and Ronald Sager.)