Inventor of the Transistor

From 1938-41 Dr. Bardeen was an assistant professor of physics at the University of Minnesota and from 1941-45 a civilian physicist at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Washington, D.C. His war years were spent working on the influence fields of ships for application to underwater ordnance and minesweeping.¹ While at Harvard, Dr. Bardeen had become friends with James B. Fisk, who in 1945 was director of research at Bell Labs. Bardeen also knew Shockley when he was a graduate student at M.I.T. "It was they who persuaded me to join the group rather than return to my academic post at Minnesota. I was the first outsider to be recruited; the rest of the initial group had been at Bell Laboratories for some years."

"My introduction to semiconductors came just after the war, in late 1945, when I joined the Bell Laboratories research group on solid-state physics, which was being formed under the leadership of Stanley Morgan and William Shockley," Dr. Bardeen once related."Following a Ph.D. under Eugene Wigner at Princeton and post-doctoral years with John H. Van Vleck at Harvard, I had been interested in the theory of metals before the war and was anxious to go back to solid-state physics after five years at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Washington."

Conditions were rather crowded when he arrived at the Murray Hill, NJ, laboratory. The wind-up of World War II research was still going on. As a new building was under construction, he was asked to share an office with Walter Brattain and Gerald Pearson. "I had known Walter since my graduate student days at Princeton. Although at that time I had not decided what field of solid-state physics I would work in, they soon got me interested in their problems and I became deeply absorbed in trying to learn what was known about semiconductor theory." There he conducted research on the electron-conducting properties of semiconductors, the work that led to the invention of the transistor.

Contributions and Honors

In 1951 Dr. Bardeen left Bell Labs to join the University of Illinois, where he dedicated himself to research superconductivity. There, Bardeen established two major research programs, one in the Electrical Engineering Department dealing with both experimental and theoretical aspects of semiconductors, and one in the Physics Department which dealt with theoretical aspects of macroscopic quantum systems, particularly superconductivity and quantum liquids. The microscopic theory of superconductivity, developed in collaboration with L.N. Cooper and J.R. Schrieffer in 1956 and 1957, has had profound implications for nearly every field of physics from elementary particle to nuclear and from the helium liquids to neutron stars.

During his sixty year scientific career, he made significant contributions to almost every aspect of condensed matter physics from his early work on the electronic behavior of metals, the surface properties of semiconductors and the theory of diffusion of atoms in crystals to his most recent work on quasi-one-dimensional metals. In his eighty-third year, he continued to publish original scientific papers.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1954) and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He served also as Council member, Vice President elect (1966), and President (1968-1969) of the American Physical Society. From 1959 to 1962 be served as a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee and later served on the Presidential Patent Committee.

John Bardeen was one of the first to recognize the importance of the xerographic process, was one of the principal advisors to the Xerox Corporation during the development of practical Xerox machines, and is now on the Xerox board of directors. Beyond his great theoretical abilities, his colleagues stand in awe of his uncanny understanding of the world of practicality and its special demands and importance in the affairs of man

He shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics with W.H. Brattain and W. Shockley for research leading to the invention of the transistor and the 1972 Nobel Prize with L.N. Cooper and J.R. Schrieffer for the theory of superconductivity. He received the distinguished Lomonosov Award of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1987. In 1990, Bardeen was one of 11 recipients of the Third Century Award honoring exceptional contributions to American creativity. He was also named by Life Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the century.

He was a man of unusual humility and was as accessible to students as to Presidents. Wherever Bardeen traveled and the game of golf was played his renown as a golfer quickly approached his reputation as physicist, inventor, and friend of the people. He was held in special, fond regard by his students, colleagues, and friends.  He died on 30 January 1991.

Task I

Speak on Bardeen’s contribution to the world science.

Task II

Retell how the world rewarded him.

KONRAD ZUSE :