⚡ 1947
Three-Electrode Circuit Element Utilizing Semiconductive Materials
U.S. Patent 2,524,035 · 1950
From the abstract
This invention relates to electric translating devices utilizing semiconductive materials, and is concerned more particularly with means and methods for amplifying or otherwise translating an electrical signal by the variable conductivity of such materials.
Note
The transistor. Bardeen and Brattain demonstrated the point-contact transistor at Bell Labs on December 23, 1947 — a small slab of germanium with two close-spaced gold contacts on its surface. William Shockley, their group leader, was furious not to be on the patent and within a month had designed the more practical junction transistor. All three shared the 1956 Nobel Prize. Bardeen would win a second Nobel in 1972 for superconductivity — still the only person to win the physics prize twice. By 2024, an estimated 13 sextillion transistors had been manufactured worldwide.