Vacuum technology

In this interview, Edward N. Clarke discusses: his family background and education; his time at Brown University and joining the Naval Reserves; his service in the Navy during and immediately following World War II; Vartan Gregorian, former president of Brown; his time at Harvard University with Ed Purcell, Norman Ramsey, and Julian Schwinger; a course he took in millimeter wave technology; Harry Farnsworth; Russ Sherburne; Al Crowell; low-energy electron diffraction work for his thesis; working with vacuum systems and photoelectric effects; his time with Sylvania Electric and work with semiconductors; his work with semiconductors; John Welty; Bell Laboratories and Western Electric; invention of the transistor by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley; learning how to grow single crystals; Bernie Rothlein; joining Sperry Rand and working with Joe Gruber, Bob Hopkins, and Art Seifert; Karl Lark-Horovitz; starting up their company, National Semiconductor; being a part of the Institute of Radio Engineers; working with venture capitalists; Peter Sprague; creating the first mass produced integrated circuit, an integrated chopper the INCH; integrated circuits were first invented by Bob Noyce and Jack Kilby; the field effect transistor; his time at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI); working jointly with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Bill Grogan; solar energy; solar powered car races; and his retirement and volunteer work.

Topics discussed include:  research equipment used at the Naval Research Laboratories including vacuum chambers, X-ray detectors, Geiger counters, vacuum spectrographs; collective approach to equipment development; Byram's on-the-job training in vacuum technology; Chubb's training for work with gases; demonstration of the vacuum chamber used for testing the HEAO (High Energy Astronomy Observatory) and a BS-1 type tube; work with NASA on the HEAO; history of the development of halogen gas tubes by Herbert Friedman; description of George Carruther's laboratory and gas filling station; development of quenching gas mixtures; comparison of gas filling techniques, 1950s and current.