Led the group and developed the junction transistor
Plate 084
1947
Murray Hill, New Jersey, United States
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
John Bardeen and Walter Brattain demonstrated a point-contact transistor at Bell Labs in December 1947. William Shockley developed the junction transistor in 1948.
About credit
The three shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics. Tension between Shockley and the other two is well documented.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Transistor
Electronics used vacuum tubes that were large, fragile, power-hungry and unreliable.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Using germanium and gold contacts, Bardeen and Brattain made a device that amplified a signal. Transistor radios appeared in 1954. Silicon replaced germanium and later chips packed millions of transistors.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Transistor, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
A switch with no moving parts
A small voltage on one terminal controls a larger current between two others.
A switch with no moving parts
Semiconductors
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Electronics
Devices became small, cheap and reliable.
Computing
Machines shrank from room-sized to pocket-sized.
Transistors are the building blocks of every computer, phone and digital device. Billions fit on one chip.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Transistor
Before
Filled a room with thousands of tubes.
After
Fits in a pocket with billions of transistors.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
