John Bardeen
Born May 23 1908 - Died Jan 30 1991

Semiconductor Amplifier; Three-Electrode Circuit Element Utilizing Semiconductive Materials
Transistor
Patent Number(s) 2,502,488; 2,524,035

Inducted 1974


Physicists John Bardeen, William B. Shockley, and Walter Brattain shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for jointly inventing the transistor, a solid-state device that could amplify electrical current. In 1972, Bardeen received a second Nobel Prize in Physics for the theory of superconductivity.

Invention Impact

The transistor performed electronic functions similar to the vacuum tube in radio and television, but was far smaller and used much less energy. The transistor became the building block for all modern electronics and the foundation for microchip and computer technology.

Inventor Bio

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Bardeen obtained his Ph.D. in 1936 in mathematics and physics from Princeton University. A staff member of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, from 1938 to 1941, he served as principal physicist at the U.S. Naval Ordinance Laboratory in Washington, D.C., during World War II, after which he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. There he conducted research on the electron-conducting properties of semiconductors. This work led to the invention of the transistor. In 1957, while at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Bardeen and two colleagues developed a theory of superconductivity. Bardeen is also responsible for a theory of superconductivity, the property of some metals to lose all electrical resistance at very low temperatures, and for a theory explaining certain properties of semiconductors. In 1977, Bardeen received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded to a civilian.

Shockley was born in London. He joined the technical staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1936 and there began experiments that led to the invention and development of the junction transistor. During World War II, he served as director of research for the Antisubmarine Warfare Operations Research Group of the U.S. Navy. After the war, he returned to Bell Telephone as director of transistor physics research. He was visiting professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1954, and deputy director of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group of the Department of Defense in 1954-55. He joined Beckman Instruments Inc., to establish the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1955. In 1958 he became lecturer at Stanford University, California, and in 1963 became the first Poniatoff professor of engineering science at Stanford University.

Brattain was born in Amoy, China. Upon receiving his doctorate in 1929, he became a research physicist for Bell Telephone Laboratories. His chief field of research involved investigations into the surface properties of solids, particularly the atomic structure of a material at the surface, which usually differs from its atomic structure in the interior. He became adjunct professor at Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, in 1967. He was granted a number of patents and wrote extensively on solid state physics.