A literature citation study of science-technology coupling in electronics

By tracing the citations made by authors in the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices to the Physical Review and other scientific journals, a record of information flows from science to technology was obtained. Evaluation of this record revealed the importance of a group of industrial scientists who serve as an intellectual bridge between the scientific and technological sectors. It was found that the scientific papers cited in the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices tend to be considerably older than the techological papers cited therein. Moreover, the median age of the Physical Review papers cited has been increasing over time, from about five years during the late 1950's to more than ten years during 1971-1975. The number of Physical Review papers cited per year by authors of Transactions papers on solid-state technology has been growing somewhat over the past two decades, but the percentage of the citations which are to the Physical Review and other scientific journals has fallen. This suggests that the magnitude of science-technoloy coupling has been increasing, but at a rate slower than the overall growth of the solid-state components field.