William Shockley
William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American inventor, physicist, and eugenicist. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".[1]
For other uses, see William Shockley (disambiguation).
William Shockley
August 12, 1989 (aged 79)
American
- Point-contact transistor and GJT
- Diffused-base transistor
- Heterojunction bipolar transistor
- Thyristor
- BARITT diode
- Shockley diode
- Junction theory
- BJT theory
- FET theory
- Deathnium
- Deep-level trap
- Deformation potential theory
- Empty lattice approximation
- Gradual channel approximation
- Lucky electron model
- Hot electron theory
- Channel length modulation
- Process variation
- Ion implantation
- Low-level injection
- Through-silicon via
- Transmission line measurement
- Shockley diode equation
- Shockley–Read–Hall recombination
- Shockley partials
- Shockley–Ramo theorem
- Shockley states
- Shockley–James paradox
- Shockley–Queisser limit
- Haynes–Shockley experiment
- Read–Shockley equation
- Van Roosbroeck– Shockley equation
- Medal for Merit (1945)
- Morris Liebmann Memorial Prize (1952)
- Comstock Prize in Physics (1953)
- Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1953)
- Nobel Prize in Physics (1956)
- Holley Medal (1963)
- Wilhelm Exner Medal (1963)
- IEEE Medal of Honor (1980)
Partly as a result of Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s and 1960s, California's Silicon Valley became a hotbed of electronics innovation. He recruited brilliant employees, but quickly alienated them with his autocratic and erratic management; they left and founded major companies in the industry.[2]
In his later life, while a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University and afterward, Shockley became known as a racist and eugenicist.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
Early life and education[edit]
Shockley was born to American parents in London on February 13, 1910, and was raised in his family's hometown of Palo Alto, California, from the age of three.[9] His father, William Hillman Shockley, was a mining engineer who speculated in mines for a living and spoke eight languages. His mother, May (née Bradford), grew up in the American West, graduated from Stanford University and became the first female U.S. Deputy mining surveyor.[10] Shockley was homeschooled up to the age of eight, due to his parents' dislike of public schools as well as Shockley's habit of violent tantrums.[7] Shockley learned some physics at a young age from a neighbor who was a Stanford physics professor.[11] Shockley spent two years at Palo Alto Military Academy, then briefly enrolled in the Los Angeles Coaching School to study physics and later graduated from Hollywood High School in 1927.[12][13]
Shockley earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Caltech in 1932 and a PhD from MIT in 1936. The title of his doctoral thesis was Electronic Bands in Sodium Chloride, a topic suggested by his thesis advisor, John C. Slater.[14]
Shockley was granted over ninety US patents.[75] Some notable ones are: