2 ms·

> The point contact transistor effect was then demonstrated to management at Bell Labs by Brattain and Bardeen on Christmas Eve in 1947. Shockley wasn’t pleased

by kqr 2y ago

> The point contact transistor effect was then demonstrated to management at Bell Labs by Brattain and Bardeen on Christmas Eve in 1947. Shockley wasn’t pleased that to have learned of the discovery over the phone, and he was even less pleased that he was left off the patent application. Nevertheless, he continued his own work which resulted in his invention of the junction transistor. The patent was filed on the 26th of June in 1948, and the first proof of principle was obtained on the 7th of April in 1949. This time around, Shockley immediately published his findings in the Bell Labs Technical Journal. In The Idea Factory this chain of events is described a little differently. Maybe the author wants to cast Shockley in a bad light, but this is the timeline it lays out: 1. Bardeen and Brattain invent the point contact transistor. 2. Shockley spends a night in a hotel room inventing the much better junction transistor as an evolution on the point contact transistor, out of spite of being excluded. 3. Shockley keeps this invention secret, in contrast to typical Bell Labs protocol. 4. At a meeting, a group at Bell Labs is close to stumbling onto the invention of the junction transistor as part of solving issues with the point contact transistor. 5. Shockley was in that meeting and whips out his schematics for the junction transistor to retain credit for its invention. Implied is that anyone at Bell Labs could have invented it, given some time. Only Shockley could have done it during a hotel room night, some time before people even realised it was needed.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
adrian_b 2y ago
While the point-contact transistor has been patented by Bardeen and Brattain, "invent" is not the most appropriate word because they have discovered experimentally by sheer luck the transistor effect between two point contacts, without having any prior idea that their experiments will result in such an effect. The Bell Labs team was indeed searching how to make a semiconductor triode (the word transistor has been coined after the discovery of the point-contact transistor). However they had expected that they would find a method to make a device similar to the metal-semiconductor or metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistors that had been invented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925 and 1928 (Lilienfeld had never succeeded to make them reproducibly, because by his time the role of impurities in semiconductors was not understood, so he was not aware about the extreme requirements for fabricating reproducible semiconductor devices). Moreover, Shockley cannot have kept "secret" the bipolar junction transistor invented by him, except perhaps for at most a few weeks, if he had felt any reason to verify his computations before making them public, to be certain that his new theory is correct. Less than half of year after the discovery of the transistor effect by Bardeen and Brattain, both Bardeen with Brattain and Shockley have filed almost simultaneously 2 patents, for their transistors. As normal, the patents have been assigned to the Bell Labs and the filings must have been prepared some time before that, together with the legal department of the company. In the real timeline there is no time left for "secrecy". Shockley certainly has not kept any useful information for himself, because the theory published by him almost immediately is what has taught the first few generations of engineers specializing in semiconductor devices, leading to an explosive growth of the industry. The BJT invented by Shockley has been the basis of the semiconductor industry, while the point-contact transistor has remained a historical curiosity. Point-contact transistors have been used for a few years only because the first junction transistors were too big, so they could not be used at radio frequencies. However the size problem has been solved quickly, so the use of point-contact transistors has been abandoned. The only reason why the discovery of the transistor effect in point-contact transistors is important is because this has made Shockley think about which is the cause of the transistor effect, making him develop his theory that he has published very soon, first in abbreviated form in 1949 in the "Bell System Technical Journal", then in 1950 in his book "Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors". Now when Shockley is mentioned everybody first comments that even if he has been a genius physicist in other aspects he was a stupid human being. Both aspects are of course true and it is not at all unusual for humans to do both very good things and very bad things. However his stupidity did not really have any harmful effects, besides many people feeling insulted by him, while his theoretical work, which has taught so many engineers how to do their jobs, remains a really important heritage, which has greatly contributed to human progress.

by kqr 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

adrian_b 2y ago

While the point-contact transistor has been patented by Bardeen and Brattain, "invent" is not the most appropriate word because they have discovered experimentally by sheer luck the transistor effect between two point contacts, without having any prior idea that their experiments will result in such an effect. The Bell Labs team was indeed searching how to make a semiconductor triode (the word transistor has been coined after the discovery of the point-contact transistor). However they had expected that they would find a method to make a device similar to the metal-semiconductor or metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistors that had been invented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925 and 1928 (Lilienfeld had never succeeded to make them reproducibly, because by his time the role of impurities in semiconductors was not understood, so he was not aware about the extreme requirements for fabricating reproducible semiconductor devices). Moreover, Shockley cannot have kept "secret" the bipolar junction transistor invented by him, except perhaps for at most a few weeks, if he had felt any reason to verify his computations before making them public, to be certain that his new theory is correct. Less than half of year after the discovery of the transistor effect by Bardeen and Brattain, both Bardeen with Brattain and Shockley have filed almost simultaneously 2 patents, for their transistors. As normal, the patents have been assigned to the Bell Labs and the filings must have been prepared some time before that, together with the legal department of the company. In the real timeline there is no time left for "secrecy". Shockley certainly has not kept any useful information for himself, because the theory published by him almost immediately is what has taught the first few generations of engineers specializing in semiconductor devices, leading to an explosive growth of the industry. The BJT invented by Shockley has been the basis of the semiconductor industry, while the point-contact transistor has remained a historical curiosity. Point-contact transistors have been used for a few years only because the first junction transistors were too big, so they could not be used at radio frequencies. However the size problem has been solved quickly, so the use of point-contact transistors has been abandoned. The only reason why the discovery of the transistor effect in point-contact transistors is important is because this has made Shockley think about which is the cause of the transistor effect, making him develop his theory that he has published very soon, first in abbreviated form in 1949 in the "Bell System Technical Journal", then in 1950 in his book "Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors". Now when Shockley is mentioned everybody first comments that even if he has been a genius physicist in other aspects he was a stupid human being. Both aspects are of course true and it is not at all unusual for humans to do both very good things and very bad things. However his stupidity did not really have any harmful effects, besides many people feeling insulted by him, while his theoretical work, which has taught so many engineers how to do their jobs, remains a really important heritage, which has greatly contributed to human progress.