Bardeen, John 1908–1991 Brattain, Walter H. 1902–1987 Shockley, William B. 1910–1989

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Bardeen, John
1908–1991
Brattain, Walter H.
1902–1987
Shockley, William B.
1910–1989

Inventors of the Transistor

John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and their boss William B. Shockley at AT&T's Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, had a job to do. AT&T needed a way to amplify voices, which tended to get "lost" in static when traveling through more than 1,610 kilometers (1,000 miles) of telephone lines. These physicists were intent upon inventing a device to amplify sound in order to replace bulky, fragile, and expensive vacuum tubes . In December of 1947, after two years of hard work, they succeeded with a piece of V-wedged germanium and a strip of gold foil. Even though the newly termed semiconductor transistor was one fiftieth of the size of vacuum tubes and drew one millionth of the electricity, they had no idea their invention would change the face of the twentieth century. The three were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for their discovery.

John Bardeen

Nicknamed "Whispering John" because of his soft-spoken manner, Bardeen was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on May 23, 1908. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1928, and his master's degree in 1929, both from the University of Wisconsin. He spent three years researching geophysics at the Gulf Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Leaving this position, he pursued studies in mathematical physics at Princeton University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1936.

Bardeen then became a junior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. An assistant professorship at the University of Minnesota followed. After that, Bardeen worked at the Naval Ordinance Laboratories in Washington, D.C. In the fall of 1943, Bardeen left there to study solid state physics at Bell Labs. Soon after the transistor discovery, Bardeen and Brattain disputed the implication that their boss, Shockley, was also credited with the invention.

Bardeen left Bell Labs in 1951 to become a professor of electrical engineering of physics at the University of Illinois. Once in Illinois, and along with graduate students L.N. Cooper and J.R. Schrieffer, Bardeen discovered microscopic superconductivity during 1956 and 1957. He was awarded a second Nobel Prize in 1972, becoming the third Nobel laureate after Marie Curie and Linus Pauling to win the coveted prize a second time.

Experts in the field have compared Bardeen's gift of physics to Wolfgang Mozart's gift of music. Bardeen influenced almost every field of physics and continued publishing papers in his field until his death. He was bestowed with numerous awards and honors representing national and worldwide recognition for his efforts. Bardeen died on January 30, 1991, at age 82, of a heart attack, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Walter H. Brattain

Brattain was born in Amoy, China, on February 10, 1902. His family moved back to the United States soon after his birth. Brattain grew up on a ranch in Washington. He earned a bachelor's degree from Whitman College in 1924 and a master's degree from the University of Oregon. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. His first post-graduate job was at the National Bureau of Standards, but he soon left there to get back into physics. Bell Labs hired Brattain in 1929. He interrupted his stint at Bell Labs to work on ways to detect submarines during World War II, but returned after the war.

Brattain's partnership with Bardeen, whom Brattain met through his brother, was a great success. Brattain had an excellent reputation as an experimenter. Bardeen, the theoretical physicist, watched the experiments. He would then ask Brattain to modify them to test new theories. Together, the two developed the first transistor, while working under the supervision of Shockley. Because of friction, Brattain eventually transferred out of Shockley's department, but he continued to work at Bell Labs until his retirement in 1967.

Brattain also lectured at Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Washington. He was also awarded several honorary degrees. He viewed his accomplishments with modesty, saying he was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. He was a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Brattain died of Alzheimer's disease in Seattle, Washington, on October 13, 1987, at the age of 85.

William Shockley

Born in London, England, on February 13, 1910, Shockley grew up in Palo Alto, California. He received his bachelor's degree from California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1936. Then he began working at Bell Labs in New Jersey. During World War II, he directed research on anti-submarine technology for the U.S. Navy, but like Brattain, returned to Bell Labs. In 1945 he was named the director of solid state physics for Bell Labs.

Although he was not present at the first successful transistor experimentation with Bardeen and Brattain, in the weeks following that discovery, Shockley contributed a series of insights that contributed to the understanding of semiconductor materials, and developed several theories about another type of amplification device, the junction transistor. He also formulated many of the theories that allowed silicon chips to be mass-produced.

In 1956 Shockley left Bell Labs to form his own company, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories, with the intent of producing silicon transistors. He established his new company near Palo Alto, California. Eventually, Shockley's abrasive management style led to the departure of several of his employees, including Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, who then went on to establish Fairchild Semiconductors and later, the Intel Corporation. Because so many of these companies were founded in that area, the region became known as Silicon Valley .

Later in life, Shockley accepted an appointment at Stanford University, where he formulated several theories about genetics. He withstood substantial criticism regarding his race-based theories, especially since the subject was deemed out of his area of expertise, physics. Bardeen died of prostate cancer on August 12, 1989, at the age of 79.

see also Bell Labs; Digital Logic Design; Integrated Circuits; Intel Corporation; Transistors; Vacuum Tubes.

Mary McIver Puthawala

Bibliography

Anderson, Susan Heller. "Walter Brattain, Inventor, Is Dead." New York Times. October 14, 1987.

Moore, Gordon E. "Solid State Physicist: William Shockley—He Fathered the Transistor and Brought the Silicon to Silicon Valley but Is Remembered by Many Only for his Noxious Racial Views." Time. March 23, 1999, p. 160.

United Press International. "John Bardeen, at Age 82, Was an Electronics Pioneer." The Record, Bergen Record Corp. January 31, 1991.