Scientists
Walter Brattain
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Walter Brattain was born on 10 February 1902 in Amoy (Xiamen), China, to American parents, raised in Washington state, and died on 13 October 1987 in Seattle, Washington. An experimental physicist, he joined Bell Labs in 1929 and by the mid-1940s was working, under William Shockley's direction, alongside the theorist John Bardeen on the surface properties of semiconductors. On 16 December 1947 Brattain and Bardeen built and demonstrated the first working point-contact transistor, a solid-state device that could amplify an electrical signal without the fragility, bulk, or power draw of a vacuum tube. He shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with Bardeen and Shockley for the discovery.
Facts
FieldExperimental physics, particularly semiconductor physics 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Invented
Transistor, Instruments Built the first working point-contact transistor with John Bardeen at Bell Laboratories, tested on 16 December 1947.
Member Of
Bell Labs, Institutions Brattain worked at Bell Labs from 1929, co-inventing the point-contact transistor there with John Bardeen in December 1947.
Works In
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Technology and Engineering Atlas: Walter Brattain, the same subject.
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