On December 23, 1947, in the Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey, physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain spoke over the world’s first transistor-amplified telephone circuit, a quarter-inch-tall device composed of a thin strip of gold foil sliced in two in order to create two metal contacts over a crystal of germanium. Their success was the culmination of eight years of research conducted alongside their team leader, 37-year old William B. Shockley, and triggered a wave of new electronics.
Brattain, John
Fall 2010 | Volume 25, Issue 3
On December 23, 1947, in the Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey, physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain spoke over the world’s first transistor-amplified telephone circuit, a quarter-inch-tall device composed of a thin strip of gold foil sliced in two in order to create two…
Innovations
