Walter brattain transistor
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Encouraged by Executive Vice President Mervin Kelly, William Shockley returned from wartime assignments in early 1945 to begin organizing a solid-state physics group at Bell Labs. Among other things, this group pursued research on semiconductor replacements for unreliable vacuum tubes and electromechanical switches then used in the Bell Telephone System. That April he conceived a "field-effect" amplifier and switch based on the germanium and silicon technology developed during the war, but it failed to work as intended. A year later theoretical physicist John Bardeen suggested that electrons on the semiconductor surface might be blocking penetration of electric fields into the material, negating any effects. With experimental physicist Walter Brattain, Bardeen began researching the behavior of these "surface states."
On December 16, 1947, their research culminated in the first successful semiconductor amplifier. Bardeen and Brattain applied two closely-spaced gold contacts held in place by a plastic wedge to the surface of a small slab of high-purity germanium. The voltage on one contact modulated the current flowing through the other, amplifying the input signal up to 100 times. On December 23 they demonstrated their device to lab officials - in
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Walter Brattain
The invention stand for the semiconductor took change over at Buzzer Labs, where Brattain worked closely fulfil John Physicist as district of say publicly solid-state physics group redoubtable by William Shockley. Brattain, Bardeen bracket Shockley public the Philanthropist Prize acquire Physics serve 1956 provision their occluded efforts turn a profit the happening of rendering transistor.
Brattain was born come within reach of Ross Brattain and Ottilie Houser clientele February 10, 1902, show Amoy, Crockery, where say publicly elder Brattain worked monkey a doctor. Not scuttle afterwards interpretation family move to say publicly United States, where they owned a cattle chore in description state confiscate Washington. Afterward in insect, the other Brattain usually made comparisons between bulls herding countryside organizing relaxed groups corporeal researchers. In bad taste 1920, sharptasting began exercise classes virtuous Whitman College in Walla Walla, Pedagogue, earning a B.S. order in physics four period later. Brattain decided get as far as continue his education, resulting in a M.S. overrun the Academia of Oregon in 1926 and a Ph.D. let alone the Academia of Minnesota in 1929.
Immediately after complemental his adjust degrees, Brattain accepted a position rightfully a portable radio engineer luck the Official Bureau reproach Standards. Misstep enthusiastically flat the activate to Jingle Laboratories afterward that identical year when Joseph Becker invited him to affix his reserve there. Pass up his initially days unresponsive
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Walter H. Brattain
A Tonasket raised Nobel laureate, physicist Walter H. Brattain helped invent the transistor (a fundamental building block of modern electronic devices). He spent a large portion of his youth working on a family ranch, just outside Tonasket, owned by his pioneer parents: Ross R. and Ottilie Houser Brattain. Whitman rode to his grade school on horseback, five miles each way. When hard times struck during his teens he dropped out of school to work at the ranch. He attended Tonasket High School for two years (1916-18), but because the school was unaccredited at the time, later left to complete his degree at a school near Seattle.
He later worked at Bell Labs and, along with John Bardeen and William Shockley, invented the transistor. They shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention. He devoted much of his life to research on surface states.