William B. Shockley
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
William Bradford Shockley
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1956
Born: 13 February 1910, London, United Kingdom
Died: 12 August 1989, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: Semiconductor Laboratory of Beckman Instruments, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA
Prize motivation: “for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect”
Prize share: 1/3
Work
Amplifying electric signals proved decisive for telephony and radio. First, electron tubes were used for this. To develop smaller and more effective amplifiers, however, it was hoped that semiconductors could be used—materials with properties between those of electrical conductors and insulators. Quantum mechanics gave new insight into the properties of these materials. In 1947 John Bardeen and Walter Brattain produced a semiconductor amplifier, which was further developed by William Shockley. The component was named a “transistor”.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
