Point-contact transistor

A point-contact transistor was the rst type of solidstate electronic transistor ever constructed. It was developed by research scientists John Bardeen and Walter
Brattain at Bell Laboratories in December, 1947.[1] They
worked in a group led by physicist William Shockley. The
group had been working together on experiments and theories of electric eld eects in solid state materials, with
the aim of replacing vacuum tubes with a smaller, less
power-consuming device.

in 1951 that operates as transistors still do, with the low

current input terminal as the base and the two high current output terminals are the emitter and collector.

The critical experiment, carried out on December 16,

1947, consisted of a block of germanium, a semiconductor, with two very closely spaced gold contacts held
against it by a spring. Brattain attached a small strip of
gold foil over the point of a plastic triangle a conguration which is essentially a point-contact diode. He then
carefully sliced through the gold at the tip of the triangle.
This produced two electrically isolated gold contacts very
close to each other.

The point-contact transistor was commercialized and sold

by Western Electric and others but was soon superseded
by the bipolar junction transistor, which was easier to
manufacture and more rugged. Germanium was employed extensively for two decades in the manufacture
of transistors, but was then almost totally replaced by
silicon and other alloyed materials. As of 2012 germanium point-contact diodes continued to be available for
use as radio-frequency detectors.[3] Point-contact diodes
are made of other materials, including silicon, and have
good microwave properties.[4] Research continued as of
2012.[5]

Unlike later semiconductor devices, it was possible for an

amateur to make a point-contact transistor, starting with
a germanium point-contact diode as a source of material (even a burnt-out diode could be used; and the transistor could be re-formed if damaged, several times if
necessary).[2]

1 Forming

An early model of a transistor

The piece of germanium used had a surface layer with an

excess of electrons. When an electric signal traveled in
through the gold foil, it injected holes (points which lack
electrons). This created a thin layer which had a scarcity A model of the rst commercially available point-contact tranof electrons.
sistor
A small positive current applied to one of the two contacts
had an inuence on the current which owed between
the other contact and the base upon which the block of
germanium was mounted. In fact, a small change in the
rst contact current caused a greater change in the second
contact current, thus it was an amplier. The rst contact is the emitter and the second contact is the collector. The low-current input terminal into the pointcontact transistor is the emitter, while the output high
current terminals are the base and collector. This diers
from the later type of bipolar junction transistor invented

To make a point-contact transistor work, a brief highcurrent pulse was used to fuse the wires to the germanium
and create the P-type material around the point of contact, a technique called 'electrical forming'. Usually this
was done by charging a capacitor of a specied value to a
specied voltage then discharging it between the emitter
and the base electrodes. Forming had a signicant failure
rate, so many commercial encapsulated transistors had to
be discarded; an uncased device as could be made by amateurs could be re-formed if damaged.[2]
1

Characteristics

Some characteristics of point-contact transistors dier

from the later junction transistor:
The common base current gain (or ) of a pointcontact transistor is around 2 to 3, whereas of
bipolar junction transistor (BJT) cannot exceed 1
and the common emitter current gain (or ) of a BJT
is typically between 20 and 200.
Dierential negative resistance.
When used in the saturated mode in digital logic,
they latch in the on-state, making it necessary to remove power for a short time in each machine cycle
to return them to the o-state.

See also
Crystal radio

References

[1] Levine, Alaina G. John Bardeen, William Shockley,

Walter BrattainInvention of the Transistor, 2008,
American Physical Society Retrieved on October 6, 2010
[2] HOME-MADE TRANSISTORS: P B Helsdon, Wirless
World, January 1954. Article starts It is quite practicable
to make point-contact transistors at home which compare
quite well with those advertised by professional manufacturers.
[3] NTE manufacture point-contact germanium diodes 1N34
and NTE110MP (matched pair)
[4] MBT Microwave/RF Semiconductors product Guide, listing several silicon microwave point-contact diodes. Accessed 23 April 2012
[5] Voltage sensitivity of a point-contact GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction microwave detector, A Suziedelis, S Asmontas, J Kundrotas, V Nargeliene and J Gradauskas,
Phys. Scr.85(2012) 035702 (5pp). Example of ongoing
research into point-contact devices.

External links
The Point-contact Transistor
Picture of the rst transistor ever assembled
(2092x2086)
PBS article

EXTERNAL LINKS

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