Invention Of Transistor

The invention of the transistor in 1947 represented a huge leap forward in electronics and communication technology, and was considered such an important development that its inventors shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The invention of the transistor was of vital importance not only for the birth of the transistor radio, but also for the development of all electronic equipment, from mobile phones and computers to robots and satellites. Prior to the Second World War, William Shockley and Walter Brattain (both USA) had been conducting research at Bell Telephone Laboratories into the use of semiconductors to replace the bulky, inefficient thermionic values that were the standard in electronic equipment. Their work was interrupted by the war, but afterwords they were joined by John Bardeen (USA) and carried on with their research.

Shockley described his team's method as 'creative failure', and said that they were 'using failures as opportunities to learn and move ahead'. One such creative failure was Shockley's attempt to create a field-effect amplifier. Bardeen modified the experiment to introduce a controlling current from a third contact, leading to the invention of the point-contact transistor, which he and Brattain patented as a 'three-electrode circuit element utilizing semi conductive materials'. Shockley was not named on this patent, but received a separate patent, in his own name, for the invention of the junction transistor - an improvement on the point-contact transistor that involved replacing the point contacts with rectifying junctions. (Junction transistors remained the industry standard until transistors were superseded by integrated circuits, or microchips, in the late 1960s.)

Shockley had told Bardeen and Brattain that as the originator of the idea he should be named as the inventor of the original point-contact transistor, to which Brattain reportedly replied: 'There's glory enough in this for everyone.' He was right, because not only was Shockley named as the inventor of the improved transistor, but all three shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics in recognition of these inventions and their subsequent work on transistors.

Source - The Book Of Inventions by Ian Harrison