JOHN BARDEEN AND TRANSISTOR PHYSICS

摘要

The recent 50th anniversary of the invention of the point-contact transistor and the discovery of transistor action by Bardeen and Brattain in December, 1947, the first solid-state electronic device to utilize both free-electrons and free-holes, has received considerable attention. The assessment as to whether the minority-carrier holes emitted into the large grained polycrystalline, n-type germanium (or silicon) sample were mainly transported from the emitter to the collector through the p-type inversion layer or exhibited some non-trivial transport as minority carriers through the ?type bulk sample, continues to be of interest. A model calculation is presented that suggests one might anticipate some fraction of bulk minority-carrier transport, concurrent with transport in the inversion layer. In that regard, Shive's experiment clearly illustrated the importance of the geometrical configuration in determining the extent of bulk transport while Shockley's seminal contribution of injection over a barrier, p-n junction theory and p-n junction transistor facilitated the mathematical description of Bardeen and Brattain's previously disclosed transistor action by using a one-dimensional analysis. Bardeen also comprehended that it was not efficient to modulate the conductivity of a slab of semiconductor via the field effect and, thereby, patented the first modern transistor device. This was an insulating gate modulating an n-type inversion layer via the field effect, utilizing the inversion layer to confine the minority-carrier transport, in series with a reverse-biased n-p junction, and resulted in the first recorded power gain in a solid-state amplifier. The device, described by Sah as a sourceless MOS transistor, became the basis of, for example, subsequent MOS memory DRAM and CMOS microprocessor applications. Indeed, John Bardeen, the co-inventor of the point-contact transistor and inventor of the MOS transistor, may rightly be called the father of modern electronics.