Transistor first point contact

The first prototype transistor (a point-contact semiconductor amplifier ), built by Bardeen and Brattain at Bell Laboratories in 1947 (a), is a far cry from today s silicon chips, packed with miniaturized semiconductor components (6)... 

The first transistor, a point-contact transistor, invented by Bardeen, Brat-tain, and Shockley in 1947 [18,19]. Adapted from Terman [5]. 

First transistor built (point-contact form) by Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley of Bell Telephone Labs Junction transistor developed to avoid reliability problems with point-contact transistor... 

In 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, both research scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories, while trying to understand the nature of the electrons at the interface between a metal and a semiconductor, made a startling discovery. They found that by making two point contacts very close to one another, they could make a three-terminal device—the first point contact transistor " (see Fig. 4.2). They made the two point contacts at the bottom of a triangular quartz crystal from two strips of gold foil separated by about 50 xm, and pressed it... 

Figure 4.2 The first point-contact transistor. It was invented at Beii Laboratories on December 23, 1947. (Reprinted with permission from Aicatei-Lucent.)...

The first transistor, made by Bardeen,37 Shockley, and Brattain38 at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1947, was a point-contact transistor (Fig. 9.17) [18-21],... 

Even though the field-effect transistor did not come into widespread use until the 1960 s, its invention predated both the junction and point-contact transistors by many years. As it is normal with many innovations, its practical realization was delayed until adequate materials and technologies were available for its fabrication. We can even say that the Thin Film Transistor (TFT) was the first solid-state amplifier ever patented. The basic principle of the field-effect transistor (what we call now JFET) was proposed by the first time by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld as early as 1925 and patented in 1930 Ref (1) (see Fig. la) where an adaptation of the cross section of the... 

Winkler, Clemens Alexander (1838-1904) German chemist who discovered germanium, one of the elements predicted by Dmitry Mendeleyev on the basis of the periodic table. Germanium became well known when the physicists William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen used it to make a point contact rectifier and then the first transistor. 

After the war, Shockley and his team at Bell Labs first developed the point-contact transistor, and then the junction transistor, using germanium, and for which they received the Nobel Prize. However, Shockley was a difficult person to work with - he had a domineering, abrasive style that caused him to fall out with his co-inventors and subsequently to leave Bell Labs. He then set up his own Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, which became part of what would later be known as Silicon Valley in California. Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was sold to ITT in 1968. 

The first work that utilized a bipolar transistor was that of Prins (52). Using a natural p-type diamond bulk crystal as a substrate, carbon ions are ion implanted to form n-type-like regions with 3.2-pm-diameter wire as a implant mask. The energy level and mechanism of the carbon implantation cannot be estimated however, bipolar transistor behavior was achieved. The I-V characteristics are shown in Fig. 9. Although the current gain of ftp = Ic/h is only 0.11, the impact on researchers in this field was not insignificant. This was followed by several research activities, such as work on npn bipolar transistors with As implanted n-type-like regions and a point contact bipolar-like transistor (53). 

In 1987, the first high-temperature operation up to 500°C was achieved by Geis et al. (54) using a point contact transistor. 

FIGURE 18.8 The transistor and its inventors, (a) The first transistor, constructed in 1947 at Bell Laboratories. Electrical contact is made at a single point and the signal is amplified as it passes through a solid semiconductor modern junction transistors amplify in a similar manner, (b) Envelope and stamp commemorating 25 years of the transistor, with portraits of its inventors, Walter Brattain, William Shockley, and John Bardeen. 

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