Summary of work and development of light emitting diodes (LEDs) and diode lasers done in the 1950s and early 1960s at Sylvania Research Laboratories, and at General Telephone and Electronics Laboratories, 1961-1964. Semiconducting Compounds Group investigates intermetallic compounds, especially GaAs and HgTe in the 1950s. Group joins the Battelle Memorial Institute group, 1957. Group effort devoted to GaAs from 1958. Group leaders discussed, Don Wahl, Henry Minden, and Sumner Mayburg. Work prompted in part by Heinrich Welker's 1952 report on preparation and properties of III-V compounds. Description of research proposals, notebook entries, reports, and memos pertaining to invention of GaAs laser, GaAs diffuse diode lasing, 1961-1962, and the cylindrical GaAs laser diode, 1963; GT&E activity in light emitting diodes and laser diodes reduced by 1964. Also prominently mentioned are: K. Arnold, J. Birman, R. Harrigan, Paul Keck, M. J. Massoulie, J. L. Pankove, B. Smith, and Otto Weinrich.
In this interview, Betsy Ancker-Johnson:, a solid state physicist, discusses such topics as: her family background and early education; her undergraduate work at Wellesley College; Hedwig Kohn; Lise Meitner; her graduate work in Germany at Tubingen University; Donald Menzel; Walther Kossel; measuring lattice constants of zinc and zinc crystals; Charles Kittel; the Minerals Research Laboratory (MRL) at University of California, Berkeley; George Gamow; working in microwave electronics at Stanford University in the Sylvania Microwave Physics Laboratory; her work at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA); L. S. Nergaard; zeolites; working with hot electrons with Maurice Glicksman; Boeing Scientific Reseach Laboratories (BSRL) and plasma physics; Jim Drummond; speaking at the Lebedev Institute; Ivar Gunn; Glen Keister; President Nixon asking her to be the Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology in the U. S. Department of Commerce; women in physics; National Bureau of Standards; trying to switch to the metric system; Dixie Lee Ray; Fred Dent; working at Argonne National Laboratories; becoming a vice president at General Motors; and Elmer W. Johnson.
