On this day in 1947, John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain demonstrated the transistor at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and thus ushered in the modern era of electronics. Following World War II Shockley had organized a solid-state physics team at the company to work on creating a replacement for vacuum tubes, which were large, costly, and emitted lots of heat. He had made some progress using the semiconducting materials silicon and germanium, but the project really kicked into gear once he recruited theorist Bardeen and experimentalist Brattain. During what’s been called the “Miracle Month” from 17 November to 23 December 1947, the researchers experimented with various materials and conditions, even immersing devices in water. By 16 December Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley had fabricated the first point-contact transistor, a half-inch-high device made of germanium and gold that was able to amplify an input signal by about 100 times. A week later the trio presented their device to the higher-ups at Bell, a demonstration that Shockley called “a magnificent Christmas present.” The transistor was announced publicly on 30 June 1948; the photo below (Bardeen is on the left, Shockley center, Brattain on the right) was one of the publicity images that accompanied the announcement. The three scientists shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
