Single crystals of germanium and silicon—Basic to the transistor and integrated circuit

HEN the transistor was discovered at Bell Laboratories there were few even within the Labs who knew about it for some months due to a decision of management to maintain close security for a period. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain [l], [2] made their earthshaki:ng observations on December 23,1947; the first public demo’nstration of the invention and announcement of the discovery was not made until June 30,1948. In the interim period only those who were assigned to the project by research management were told the facts. I was at Bell Labs at this time and had been there for many years. Though I was not in the physics semiconductor group, I learned a bit about the invention in the early part of 1948, due to my having deposited pyrolytically. silicon, germanium, and germanium-silicon alloy films on ceramic tubes during World War 11. Some of these experimental samples turned out to be of interest to Shockley in trying some of his ideas of how to make a field-effect tramistor. Bardeen and Brattain’s discovery was very exciting news, perhaps even more so for me than for many others because I had long nourished an interest in germanium. that had started with my undertaking graduate study a t Brown University under Prof. Charles A. Kraus, American Chemical Society president, and Willard Gibbs, Franklin and Priestley Medalist, who was one of the two outstanding U. S. experts on germanium at that ime. My master’s and doctor’s theses were on germanium. It was a material studied only for its scientific interest; its complete uselessness fascinated’ and challenged me. My concentration on this shiny metallic-appearing material during my graduate school days resulted in a continuing personal sentimental attachment for germanium, which, to me, a t least, was and is an exotic element. This deep but little known personal attachment influenced me from time to time over an eighteen-year period after leaving Brown University to seek some way of capitalizing on this knowledge and interest acquired years before. The opportunity to enter a career of creative research and innovation, concerned particularly with electronic materials, I owe to Dr. Robert R. Williams and Dr. Robert M. Burns, who headed Bell Labs chemical research. When they invited me to come to work at Bell Laboratories, I accepted and went there in 1930. M.y initial studies a t Bell began as a member of the Chemical Research Department. In 1933 I transferred to the Electro-Optical Department reporting to its head,