Lehovec was born 12 June 1918, in Ledvice in northern Bohemia in Austria-Hungary (now part of the Czech Republic).

He was educated there and went to the United States in 1947 under the auspices of Operation Paperclip[3] which allowed scientists and engineers to emigrate.

With Carl Accardo and Edward Jamgochian, he explained the first light-emitting diodes[4] citing previous work by Oleg Losev.

Such conduction was first predicted by K. Lehovec in the paper "Space-charge layer and distribution of lattice defects at the surface of ionic crystals" ( J. Chem.

The Lehovec effect forms a basis for a creation of multitude nanostructured fast ion conductors as used in modern portable lithium batteries and fuel cells.