"p-n Junction Transistors", in Physical Review Vol. 83, No. 1, July 1, 1951.

SHOCKLEY, W., SPARKS, M. & TEAL, G. K. // Nobel Prize in Physics, 1956 "for the invention of the junction transistor"

Published by Lancaster, PA & New York, NY: American Physical Society, 1951

About this Item

SHOCKLEY, W., SPARKS, M. & TEAL, G. K. "p-n Junction Transistors", in Physical Review Vol. 83, No. 1, July 1, 1951. Lancaster, PA & New York, NY: American Physical Society, 1951; pp. 151-62 in the issue of ii, 248pp. Original wrappers. This issue has been restored with a new (and reinforced) spine and spine cover, with a very strong printing of the journal name and issue a lovely job. FINE copy. The only detraction here is a small owner's rubber stamp on the front wrapper bottom. [++] "The first big change in transistors occurred when William Shockley developed a junction transistor." (This following the point-contact transistor of 1947, the first transistor ever made and built by Walter Brittain and John Bardeen; and the Type-A transistor of 1948.) [++] "The first junction transistors were sandwiches of N- and P-type germanium (germanium with an excess and scarcity of electrons, respectively).  A weak voltage coming into the middle layer would affect another current traveling across the entire sandwich." --PBS Transistor Timeline [++] "After William Shockley's theories about p-n junctions had been validated by tests fabricating a working junction transistor still presented formidable challenges. The main problem was lack of sufficiently pure, uniform semiconductor materials. Bell Labs chemist Gordon Teal argued that large, single crystals of germanium and silicon would be required, but few - including Shockley - were listening. With little support from management, Teal built the needed crystal-growing equipment himself.Based on techniques developed in 1917 by the Polish chemist Jan Czochralski, he suspended a small "seed" crystal of germanium in a crucible of molten germanium and slowly withdrew it, forming a long, narrow, single crystal. Shockley later called this achievement "the most important scientific development in the semiconductor field in the early days." Employing this technique, Bell Labs chemist Morgan Sparks fabricated p-n junctions by dropping tiny pellets of impurities into the molten germanium during the crystal-growing process. In April 1950, he and Teal began adding two successive pellets into the melt, the first with a p-type impurity and the second n-type, forming n-p-n structures with a thin inner, or base, layer. A year later, it surpassed the best point-contact transistors in performance. Bell Labs announced this advance on July 4, 1951 in a press conference featuring Shockley."--Computer History Museum online [++] Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect.".

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: "p-n Junction Transistors", in Physical Review Vol. 83, No. 1, July 1, 1951.
• Publisher: Lancaster, PA & New York, NY: American Physical Society
• Publication Date: 1951
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Computing History
  • Technology