Biographical Memoirs Volume 63 (1994) / Chapter Skim
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3. Walter Houser Brattain
3. Walter Houser Brattain
Pages 68-87
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From page 69... ...
War IT to exploit the understanding of properties of solids made possible by quantum theory. For some years before his retirement from Bell, Brattain taught on a part-time basis at his alma mater, Whitman College, anc!
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From page 70... ...
and Ottilie Houser Brattain, were both born in the territory of Washington of pioneer stock. My father was born near Farmington and my mother in Colville where she was baptized by Cushing Fells who founded Whitman College in honor of his fellow missionary Marcus Whitman.
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From page 71... ...
a sister, Marl, both of whom survived him. With financial help from an aunt, Walter followed his parents en cl attended Whitman College.
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From page 72... ...
Tate on "[Efficiency of Excitation by Electron Impact and Anomalous Scattering in Mercury Vapor." He left in the fall of 1928 to take a position at the U.S. National Bureau of Stanclards, where he spent a year before joining Bell Labs.
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From page 73... ...
He anc! Foster Nix organized a study group in solid state physics, in which Brattain was an active participant.
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From page 74... ...
Differences in work function between two surfaces are equal to the contact potential difference, the difference in potential outside the two surfaces when there is an electric contact between the two metals. Brattain and Becker found that the difference in work functions as determined from thermionic emissio is equal to the difference in contact potentials.
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From page 75... ...
The further development of silicon and germanium for radar during the war by the MIT Radiation Laboratory, the University of Pennsylvania, and Purdue University provided essential background for the discovery of the transistor. Brattain and his family moved to New Jersey when Bell opened up the Murray Hill Laboratories.
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From page 76... ...
The initial semiconductor group. one of several in the ~ 1 ' ct~v~s~on, consisted of Walter Brattain and Gerald Pearson, experimental physicists; Robert Gibney, a physical chemist; -, 1 , Initially, neand Hilbert Moore, an electrical engineer.
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From page 77... ...
With new materials to study and new concepts to help understanding, it was a very exciting time to be involvecI in semiconductor research. We followed the Bell Labs traciition of forming study groups to learn about what had been accomplished.
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From page 78... ...
By thermal excitation or by light (photoconductivity) , electrons can be excited from the valence bonds, giving equal numbers of conduction electrons and holes to acic!
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From page 79... ...
The introduction of integrated circuits ctid not occur until the early 1960s, nearly fifteen years after the initial invention. The first transistor to be put in production by Bell Labs was the point-contact transistor in a form clesigned in large part by William G
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From page 80... ...
Also important was learning how an inversion layer of opposite conducting type is formed at the free surface of a semiconductor with the charges balanced by electrons in surface states. ~ collaborated with Brattain in this study for a couple of years after ~ left Bell to go to the University of Illinois in 1951, and he later worked with C
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From page 81... ...
They both enjoyed travel and music. He played golf regularly at the local country club, and he resumed fishing in rugged surroundings.
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He was elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame and posthumously to the Information Processing Hall of Fame of INFOMART.
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From page 83... ...
Density of surface states on silicon deduced from contact potential measurements.
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From page 84... ...
Physical theory of semiconductor surfaces.
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From page 85... ...
Field effect and photo effect experiments on germanium surfaces.
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From page 86... ...
Electrical properties of the anodically etched germanium surface.
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From page 87... ...
Ion-diffusion potentials and electrical rectification across lipid membranes activated by excitation-induced material.
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