William Shockley

Background

An American physicist and, later, a controversial figure whose company seeded Silicon Valley.

Contribution

Led the Bell Labs semiconductor group and invented the junction transistor (1948), a more practical device; shared the 1956 Nobel Prize.

Associated inventions

• The Transistor

Collaborators & contemporaries

• John Bardeen
• Walter Brattain

Associated organizations

• Bell Telephone Laboratories

Sources & further reading

Each citation names the publisher and the exact reference title.

• The Nobel Prize in Physics 1956 — Shockley, Bardeen & Brattain (transistor)The Nobel Prize · Professional body

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