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Born in Russia 1921, moved to New York 1922; Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (physics); Purdue University (Ph.D.), 1942- 1949; works teaching military students, 1943-1945; cyclotron and beta ray spectroscopy projects (related to Manhattan Project); Karl Lark-Horovitz as blanket-adviser; semiconductor project with Ron Smith; spreading resistance measurements; Edward Teller, John Bardeen, William Shockley; the self-transistor effect (Bell Laboratories); third electrode work by Seymour Benzer, 1949; semiconductor project; comments on Lark-Horovitz. Also prominently mentioned are: Joseph A. Becker, Walter Houser Brattain, Bill Fan, Arthur Ginsburg, Vivian Annabelle Johnson, Bernard Kurrelmeyer, Robert Green Sachs, Isidor Walerstein, Hubert J. Yearian; American Physical Society, Brooklyn College, Manhattan Project, and United States Army Signal Corps. Interview conducted as part of the International Project in the History of Solid State Physics.
Recollection of the work done on semiconductors at Purdue University after World War II. Major topics include Fan's education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his recollections of the Purdue physics department in the 1940s, and work on semiconductors at Purdue in the 1940s. Also prominently mentioned are: Ralph Bray, Karl Lark-Horovitz, A. H. Wilson; Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory.
Born in Oregon 1912, entered Purdue University, 1932, studying solid state physics, teaching assistant work with Lothar Nordheim on crystal structure, 1937; Ph.D. thesis, 1937 (published 1940); physics department under Karl Lark-Horovitz grows in the 1930s, visiting lecturers (refugees from Germany and Europe: Lothar Nordheim, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner). First cyclotron (homemade), 1935. War work: basic research in germanium, rectification of crystals (Bethe), close connections with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania; Lark-Horovitz chose solid state physics as less sensitive field with respect to clearance; showed silicon-germanium intrinsic semiconductors, 1942; General Electric’s germanium interest; success interpreting resistivity and thermoelectric behavior in germanium, 1944. American Physical Society meeting intense interest in Purdue presentations, January 1946; the transistor, 1948 (William Shockley, Ralph Bray); how to grow germanium crystals, 1949; Esther Conwell’s thesis (Victor Weisskopf). Also prominently mentioned are: John Backus, Seymour Benzer, Hubert Maxwell James, A. A. Knowlton, K. W. Meissner, E. P. Miller, Ronald Smith, Herbert J. Yearian; and Purdue University Department of Physics.
In this interview Jerry Woodall discusses topics such as: his family background; undergraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Morris Cohen; working with semiconductors; Clevite Transistor Products; Al Dulac; crystal growth; Seymour Keller; graduate work at Cornell University; International Business Machines Corporation (IBM); Peter Sorokin; Hans Rupprecht; Zhores Alferov; lasers; Les Eastman; Purdue University; Charles Ahn.
Testing klystrons at Wright Field for blind landing, at request of Wilmer L. Burrow of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Sperry Gyroscope research contract with Stanford University, San Carlos and Garden City plants. Contact with solid state physics through use of old-fashion crystal detectors in the klystron. Bell Laboratories and other centers for research in microwaves; John Pierce and other scientists in semiconductor work. Cooperation among industrial labs and the military for war effort; doping of germanium; history of silicon detectors, Winfield Salisbury’s contribution, William P. Cook, Karl Lark-Horovitz. Sperry patent; first semiconductor amplifier designed by Woodyard but not claimed on patent; the Sperry-Texas Instruments patent suit. Work on the Manhattan Project, 1942. Joined Lark-Horovitz at Purdue University following war to continue research in electron linear accelerator. Move to Berkeley’s Radiation Laboratory; continued work on transistors. Also prominently mentioned are: William Webster Hansen, R. A. Heising, Vivian Annabelle Johnson, Jones, Guglielmo Marconi, Arthur Norbert, Russell S. Ohl, David Sloan, and Bill Wasson.