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Gather, process and present secondary information to discuss how shortcomings in available communication technology lead to an increased knowledge of the properties of materials with particular reference to the invention of the transistor.
The invention of the transistor is a good example of what often happens in science, where shortcomings in available technology stimulate further research that eventually leads to improved technology. In the 1930s and 1940s, a prime motive of the scientists at Bell Laboratories in the USA was to replace the old, unreliable mechanical relays (electromagnetic switches with moving parts) in telephone exchanges with electronic relays. Vacuum tubes were used for this purpose but they took up a huge amount of space and large exchanges with many vacuum tubes required constant maintenance. Something smaller was required.
Semiconductor crystals had been used as current-rectifiers in radios in the 1930s but the physics of how they worked was not understood. Shortcomings in this communication technology, namely the ease with which these rectifiers could burn out, led directly to increased knowledge of the properties of materials. Work by Russell Ohl in 1939 and 1940 led to his discovery of the effect of a barrier in a silicon crystal with different levels of purity on either side of the barrier the silicon p-n junction. Work by Karl Lark-Horovitz and Seymour Benzer led to the discovery of the excellent rectifying properties of germanium crystal and that adding impurities to the germanium could greatly enhance its current-carrying capacity.
Using this improved knowledge of materials, Walter Brattain and John Bardeen used germanium to develop the first transistor in 1948. Called the point-contact transistor, this was the first semiconductor amplifier. Although this was a huge breakthrough, these transistors had their own shortcomings, which in turn led to increased knowledge of the properties of materials.
William Shockley, also in 1948, proposed a different design for the transistor. He suggested a sandwich structure in which two n-type semiconductor layers were separated by a p-type layer. The successful operation of the point-contact transistor could be explained by assuming that the current flowed around the surface of the germanium. For Shockleys design to work, current would have to flow through the crystal. Further research was necessary.
Richard Haynes showed that current could indeed flow through a crystal of germanium. His research also showed that the layer in the middle had to be very thin and very pure. After a great deal of effort, Gordon Teal developed a technique for producing very pure single crystals of germanium and showed that single crystals were better current-carriers than slivers cut from a larger ingot of many crystals.
Next Teal and Morgan Sparks teamed up to develop a technique for producing a single crystal that had n-type material at each end and p-type material in the middle. By 1950, they had achieved this goal and the first junction transistor was produced.
At first these transistors could only amplify very small signals. The problem was the thickness of the middle p-type layer. This led Sparks to improve the single crystal manufacture technique and by 1951 he had produced single crystals whose middle p-type layers were thinner than a sheet of paper. This greatly improved the performance of the transistor.
Transistors made from germanium still had one large shortcoming. As the germanium heated up the transistor produced too many free electrons, which effectively stopped the transistor working. In 1954, Gordon Teal again came to the rescue finally producing a working silicon transistor, after several years of experimentation.
Clearly, the history of the invention of the transistor shows how shortcomings in the available communication technology led to an increased knowledge of the properties of materials.
I know it is very lengthy. Found it on a website some time back. But hope it helps.
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