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On the Trail of the Transistor

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On the Trail of the Transistor book reviews On the trail of the transistor Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age by Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson Norton: 1997. Pp. 352. $27.50 Frederick Seitz For a quarter of a century, Lillian Hoddeson, CORBIS-BETTMANN/UPI a physicist, has collected background mater- ial on the history of solid-state physics, both basic and applied, carrying out taped inter- views with many of the most creatively active scientists, and studying the available litera- ture, including archival files. One of the many by-products of this endeavour has been the multi-authored book Out of the Crystal Maze (Oxford University Press, 1992), of which Hoddeson was co-editor and leading catalyst. Early in this decade, and in recognition of the fact that 1997 would be the fiftieth anniver- sary of the invention of the transistor, she joined with Michael Riordan, another physi- cist with a comparable interest in science his- tory, to produce this lively account of the invention, with much emphasis on events that John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain (left to right) at Bell Telephone Laboratories in preceded and followed it. The background, 1948. The picture appears in The Invention that Changed the World: The Story of Radar from War to personalities and actions of the principal Peace by Robert Buderi, reviewed by Frederick Seitz in Nature 384, 424 (1996) and now published in actors are given ample coverage. the United Kingdom by Little, Brown at £20. Mervin Kelly, who became head of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1936 and thoroughly understood semiconductors had understand the factors that had caused remained its leader for more than 20 years, become available for exploratory research. Shockley’s experiment to fail. Bardeen can clearly be said to be the spiritual father of With the end of the war, Kelly appointed guessed that the specimen of semiconductor the transistor. While head of the vacuum- Shockley as head of a team attempting to possessed surface trapping levels for the con- tube division of the Western Electric Com- develop a triode. Fortunately, Shockley suc- ducting carriers and that the occupation of pany, also a subsidiary of AT&T, he noted in ceeded at this time in adding John Bardeen to these could vary in such a way as to compen- the late 1920s the remarkable, durable prop- the group. Bardeen had taken leave of an aca- sate for variations in external applied field. erties of inexpensive copper-oxide rectifiers, demic post in physics for military research With the aid of colleagues, they were able to commonly used at that time for the conver- early in the war and found the new pro- prove that this was the case, opening the way sion of relatively low-frequency alternating gramme in solid-state physics particularly to the eventual development of field-effect current to direct current. Among many challenging. He possessed two very valuable transistors. virtues, they needed no heated filament to gifts: he had the tenacity of a bulldog when Then, in re-examining a different failed provide conduction electrons. He decided attacking a difficult problem and he pos- experiment carried out in connection with that the company should see if it could devel- sessed a remarkable ‘third eye’ which provid- the study of trapping levels, they made a op a comparable semiconductor triode. ed him with special insight into complex remarkable discovery. When a current of Others might similarly ponder this matter, problems. His advent proved to be critical for minority carriers was injected from a point- but Kelly would eventually gather together the the immediate course of the programme. contact electrode and induced to flow to a appropriate combination of resources to Early on, Shockley had tried to develop nearby point-collecting electrode, both that achieve success. Once he became head of the what is now known as a field-effect transistor current and one of majority carriers from the laboratories, he took steps to increase the size in the most direct way, namely by attempting collector to a third, more distant electrode of the group involved in solid-state research, to alter the number of conducting carriers (the base) could be modulated by altering which already contained Walter Brattain and (electrons or holes) in a strip of semiconduc- the potential of the base. The invention of Gerald Pearson. William Shockley was one of tor carrying a current by applying an exter- the bipolar point-contact transistor followed. the first additions. nal field normal to the strip, much as one It was demonstrated to management on Unfortunately, Kelly’s ambitious dream might alter the charge in a condenser plate. 23 December 1947. had to be all but shelved until 1945 because of The experiment failed. Because the invention was founded as the more immediate pressures of war research. Shockley, temporarily discouraged, turned much on empirical observation as on theoret- In the meantime, however, much attention the problem over to Bardeen and Brattain, ical understanding, several issues about the was devoted to the relative perfection of sili- who had developed a working partnership, operation of the device had to be explored. con and germanium diodes for use as ‘mixers’ while he turned to other solid-state problems. Among the most important, John Shive soon in microwave radar — a development started This was in fact one of Shockley’s most cre- demonstrated that minority carriers actually in England and carried on in several laborato- atively productive periods in relation to more can travel considerable distances through bulk ries in the United States, including the Bell general aspects of solid-state physics. material where majority carriers dominate. Laboratories. Two new, versatile and more Bardeen and Brattain decided to try to The minority current was not confined to a NATURE VOL 388 24 JULY 1997 339 | | Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1997 book reviews thin depletion area at the surface, as Bardeen concerns the quantum field programme thought might be the case. (the emergence, formulation and application Shive’s demonstration caused Shockley Ceaseless of quantum field theory, including current to propose an important modification of the algebra, anomalies, renormalization and original transistor. Instead of injecting and fluctuations the renormalization group); and the third collecting minority carriers with the use of Conceptual Developments of describes the gauge field programme (the point contacts, one could employ relatively Twentieth Century Field Theories Standard Model, and some extensions). The large area p–n junctions and gain the advan- by Tian Yu Cao discussion is on occasion necessarily techni- tage of much larger currents. The concept of Cambridge University Press: 1997. Pp. 433 cal, but this is not an advanced physics text- the bipolar junction transistor, which was to £45, $59.95 book: rather, it is an up-to-date, well informed dominate the field for the next two decades Ian Aitchison and detailed historical account of the concep- or so, was born. A semiconductor triode was tual origins and development of twentieth- not only feasible but was about to generate A century can be a convenient unit of history. century field theories, structured in terms of one of the greatest technological revolutions During the past hundred years or so, quantum the above programmes. in history. field theory has replaced classical mechanics This is not all, however. Surrounding this The text is rich in anecdote, presenting as the framework of fundamental physics. The substantial historical meat are introductory the reader with colourful views of many of climax of this development has been the spec- and closing chapters that are philosophical in the secondary as well as the primary figures tacularly successful Standard Model, a rela- character. For me, they are the most stimulat- involved. Backgrounds, hopes and destinies tivistic quantum gauge field theory describing ing parts of the book. are examined. Matters such as Shockley’s matter and forces at the smallest sizes current- Cao’s aim is to show that there is a pattern gradual change in personality as he became a ly accessible. in the conceptual evolution that he celebrity, and the changes in the working But the intricate theoretical structure has describes. In particular, he is concerned to atmosphere which made Bardeen decide to imperfections, and the general quantum field combat the claim, originating in the work of return to an academic career, are dealt with framework has failed to accommodate gravity Kuhn and others, that the history of science in a forthright manner. on the same footing as the other known forces. reveals no coherent direction of ontological Although the book is written in a semi- There are tantalizing hints of a new physics development, and hence that no theoretical popular style which should appeal to the beyond quantum field theory. It seems a good ontology can be taken as the real ontology of type of general reader interested in the his- moment to take stock. the world. Or, in other words, no matter how tory of technology, the historical research on Tian Yu Cao’s timely book provides a empirically successful our succeeding theo- which it is based is impeccably sound, unlike broad overview of twentieth-century field ries may be, they do not provide access to many books of this kind. The authors, with theories. The story is presented in three parts, metaphysical reality. The contrasting posi- their professional reputations involved, have each devoted to a general line of development tion that Cao wishes to defend is character- left no stone unturned in making their work which he subsumes under the heading of a ized by him as “structural realism” which, an enduring classic. “research programme”. roughly speaking, holds that the structural Frederick Seitz is at the Rockefeller University, The first part covers the geometrical pro- relations between entities (often expressed 1230 York Avenue, New York, gramme (Einstein’s metric field theory of by mathematical structure) in a successful New York 10021-6399, USA.
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