Abstract
Important dates and events in the history of semiconductors are chronologically listed, from the early days (Volta, Seebeck and Faraday) to the latest achievements like the blue and white LED. Many known and not so well known scientists are mentioned. Also a list of semiconductor related Nobel prizes and their winners is given.
The proper conduct of science lies in the pursuit of Nature’s puzzles, wherever they may lead.
J.M. Bishop [2]
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
F. Braun made his discoveries on metal–semiconductor contacts in Leipzig while a teacher at the Thomasschule zu Leipzig [16]. He conducted his famous work on vacuum tubes later as a professor in Strasbourg, France.
- 2.
This work was conducted as Habilitation in the Physics Institute of Universität Leipzig. Bädeker became subsequently professor in Jena and fell in WW I. His scientific contribution to semiconductor physics is discussed in [32, 33].
- 3.
CuI is actually a p-type transparent conductor; at that time the positive sign of the Hall effect [34, 35] could not be interpreted as hole conduction yet.
- 4.
Historical remarks on Eccles’ contributions to radio technology can be found in [36, 37].
- 5.
After obtaining his PhD in 1905 from the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin, Julius Edgar Lilienfeld joined the Physics Department of Universität Leipzig and worked on gas liquefaction and with Lord Zeppelin on hydrogen-filled blimps. In 1910 he became professor at the Universität Leipzig where he mainly researched on X-rays and vacuum tubes [43]. To the surprise of his colleagues he left in 1926 to join a US industrial laboratory [44, 45].
- 6.
In [44] it is suggested that the device works as a npn transistor, in [47] it is suggested to be a JFET.
- 7.
The historic role of Losev regarding the invention of the LED and oscillators is discussed in [55–57].
- 8.
Peierls performed this work at suggestion of W. Pauli at ETH Zürich. The mathematical problem of Schrödinger’s equation with a sinusoidal potential had been already treated by M.J.O Strutt in 1928 [61].
- 9.
Wilson was theoretical physicist in Cambridge, who spent a sabbatical with Heisenberg in Leipzig and applied the brand new field of quantum mechanics to issues of electrical conduction, first in metals and then in semiconductors. When he returned to Cambridge, Wilson urged that attention be paid to germanium but, as he expressed it long afterward,‘the silence was deafening’ in response. He was told that devoting attention to semiconductors, those messy entities, was likely to blight his career among physicists. He ignored these warnings and in 1939 brought out his famous book ‘Semiconductors and Metals’ [65] which explained semiconductor properties, including the much-doubted phenomenon of intrinsic semiconductivity, in terms of electronic energy bands. His academic career seems indeed to have been blighted, because despite his great intellectual distinction, he was not promoted in Cambridge (he remained an assistant professor year after year) [66]. Compare the remark of W. Pauli (p. 205).
- 10.
Subsequently, AT&T, under pressure from the US Justice Department’s antitrust division, licensed the transistor for $25,000. This action initiated the rise of companies like Texas Instruments, Sony and Fairchild.
- 11.
The setup of Fig. 1.9b represents a common base circuit. In a modern bipolar transistor, current amplification in this case is close to unity (Sect. 24.2.2). In the 1948 germanium transistor, the reversely biased collector contact is influenced by the emitter current such that current amplification \(\partial I_{\mathrm {C}}/\partial I_{\mathrm {E}}\) for constant \(U_{\mathrm {C}}\) was up to 2–3. Due to the collector voltage being much larger than the emitter voltage, a power gain of \({\sim } 125\) was reported [88].
- 12.
An early concept for III–V semiconductors was developed in [92, 93].
- 13.
A solar cell with 1 W power cost $300 in 1956 ($3 in 2004). Initially, ‘solar batteries’ were only used for toys and were looking for an application. H. Ziegler proposed the use in satellites in the ‘space race’ of the late 1950s.
- 14.
The two patents led to a decade-long legal battle between Fairchild Semiconductors and Texas Instruments. Eventually, the US Court of Customs and Patent Appeals upheld R.N. Noyce’s claims on interconnection techniques but gave J.S. Kilby and Texas Instruments credit for building the first working integrated circuit.
- 15.
The Swiss born Jean Hoerni also contributed $12 000 for the building of the first school in the Karakoram Mountain area in Pakistan and has continued to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan as described in [104].
- 16.
Remarks on the discovery and further development of the laser diode can be found in [118, 119].
- 17.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grundmann, M. (2016). Introduction. In: The Physics of Semiconductors. Graduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23880-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23880-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23879-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23880-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)