Bell Laboratory

Sandra Kosinski John B. MacChesney AT T Bell Laboratories... 

Interface states played a key role in the development of transistors. The initial experiments at Bell Laboratories were on metal/insulator/semiconductor (MIS) stmctures in which the intent was to modulate the conductance of a germanium layer by applying a voltage to the metal plate. However, only - 10% of the induced charges were effective in charging the conductance (3). It was proposed (2) that the ineffective induced charges were trapped in surface states. Subsequent experiments on surface states led to the discovery of the point-contact transistor in 1948 (4). 

Figure 4 SEM micrographs of a region on the back of a silicon wafer (a) and (b) show the surface at different magnifications ic) is a cross sectional view (Courtesy of P. M. Kahora, AT T Bell Laboratories).

Some 20 years after the pressure for the creation of the new interdisciplinary laboratories was first felt, one of the academics who became involved very early on. Prof. Rustum Roy of Pennsylvania State University, wrote eloquently about the underlying ideal of interdisciplinarity (Roy 1977). He also emphasised the supportive role played by some influential industrial scientists in that creation, notably Dr. Guy Suits of GE, whom we have already encountered, and Dr. William Baker of Bell Laboratories who was a major force in pushing for interdisciplinary materials research in industry and academe alike. A magisterial survey by Baker (1967), under the title Solid State Science and Materials Development, indicates the breadth and scope of his scientific interests. 

The Shockley involved in this symposium was ihe same William Shockley who had participated in the invention of the transistor in 1947. Soon after that momentous event, he became very frustrated at Bell Laboratories (and virtually broke with his coinventors, Walter Brattain and John Bardeen), as depicted in detail in a rivetting history of the transistor (Riordan and Hoddeson 1997). For some years, while still working at Bell Laboratories, he became closely involved with dislocation geometry, clearly as a means of escaping from his career frustrations, before eventually turning fulltime to transistor manufacture. 

Figure 7.3. The evolution of electronics a vacuum tube, a discrete transistor in its protective package, and a 150 nun (diameter) silicon wafer patterned w ith hundreds of integrated circuit chips. Each chip, about I enr in area, contains over one million transistors, 0..35 pm in size (courtesy M.L. Green, Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies).

A number of American research institutions and the people who shaped them have already featured in this book the creation of the Materials Research Laboratories Robert Mehl s influence on the Naval Research Laboratory and on Carnegie Institute of Technology Hollomon s influence on the GE laboratory Seitz s influence on the University of Illinois (and numerous other places) Carothers and Flory at the Dupont laboratory the triumvirate who invented the transistor and the atmosphere at Bell Laboratories that made this feat possible Stookey, glass-ceramics and the Corning Glass laboratory. I would like now to round off this list with an account of a most impressive laboratory that came to grief, and the man who shaped it. 

The study of electrons trapped in matter (commonly termed solid state ) led eventually to the invention of the transistor in 1947 by Walter Brattain, John Bardeen, and William Shockley at Bell Laboratories, and then to the integrated circuit hy Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby a decade later. Use of these devices dominated the second half of the twentieth century, most notably through computers, with a significant stininlus to development being given by military expenditures. 

The photoelectric effect (the creation of an electrical current when light shines on a photosensitive material connected m an electrical circuit) was first obseiwed in 1839 by the French scientist Edward Becqiierel. More than one hundred years went by before researchers in the United States Bell Laboratories developed the first modern PV cell in 1954. Four years later, PV was used to power a satellite in space and has provided reliable electric power for space exploration ever since. 

Many elements were found to experience the photoelectric effect. Germanium, copper, selenium, and cuprous oxide comprised many of the early experimental cells. In 1953 Bell Laboratories scientists Calvin Fuller and Gerald Pearson were conducting... 

S. V. Frolov Bell Laboratories Lucent Technologies 600 Mountain Ave. 

Prof. Gunter Victor Schulz, Niklas-Vogt StraBe 22, 6500 Mainz, FRG Prof. William P. Shchter, Executive, Director, Research-Materials Science and Engineering Division AT T Bell Laboratories, 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ 07974, U.S.A. 

The start of the solid-state electronic industry is generally recognized as 1947 when Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories demonstrated the transistor function with alloyed germanium. The first silicon transistor was introduced in 1954 by Texas Instruments and, in 1956, Bell Laboratories produced the first diffused junction obtained by doping. The first-solid state transistor diodes and resistors had a single electrical function and were (and still are) known as discrete devices. 

ADEL F. SAROFIM, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ROBERT S. SCHECHTER, University of Texas, Austin WILLIAM R. SCHOWALTER, Princeton University L. E. SCRIVEN, University of Miimesota JOHN H. SEINFELD, California Institute of Technology JOHN H. SINFELT, Exxon Research and Engineering Company LARRY F. THOMPSON, AT T Bell Laboratories KLAUS D. TIMMERHAUS, University of Colorado ALFRED E. WECHSLER, Arthur D. Little, Inc. 

LARRY F. THOMPSON Chairman), AT T Bell Laboratories LEE F. BLYLER, AT T Bell Laboratories JAMES ECONOMY, IBM Almaden Research Center DENNIS W. HESS, University of California, Berkeley RICHARD POLLARD, University of Houston T. W. FRASER RUSSELL, University of Delaware MICHAEL SHEPTAK, Ampex Corporation... 

SOURCE AT< T Bell Laboratories. Compiled from various published sources. 

FIGURE 4.1 Chemical reactions are used to achieve the fine structures seen in modern integrated circuits. This electron micrograph shows a transistor in a "cell" of a 1-mega-bit dynamic random access memory chip. The distance between features is about 1 pm. Courtesy, AT T Bell Laboratories. 

FIGURE 4.6 Since 1975, both the capacity of optical fiber and the distance a signal can be carried on optical fiber have steadily increased. Courtesy, AT T Bell Laboratories. 

FIGURE 4.14 Feature size on mieroeleetronie deviees has steadily deelined over the years as improved ehemieal etching processes have been developed. This graph shows feature size as a function of the year in which the device with the smallest feature size was first produced. Courtesy, AT T Bell Laboratories. 

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