Head of Electronic Countermeasures Section of the U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Ships, 1945-1948, with primary responsibilities in design of low noise receivers, surveillance of electromagnetic spectrum; cooperation with other offices (Radar, Vacuum Tube, Office of Naval Research). Retirement from Navy; professor at University of Maryland and graduate student in physics at Catholic University. His important contribution using quantum states of atoms and molecules (Ottawa conference, 1952); his thesis that employed microwave spectroscopy to solve a physical chemistry problem. Also prominently mentioned are: Hatton, Rudolf Kompfner, John Pierce, Emanuel Piore, Horbert J. Reich, Louis Smullin; Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Institute of Radio Engineers.
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.
Graduate study at Harvard University; greatest influence was Wallace C. Sabine; Ph.D. on e/m as a function of accelerating voltage supervised by Harry Moss, 1907; as corollary he developed the "Chaffee quenched gap" for producing continuous oscillations. Work on oxide filament in thermionic vacuum tubes, 1910; the Chaffee Gap used in wireless telegraphy experiments, 1911; mercury arc work with Pierce resulting in mercury vapor detector. World War I: torpedo detectors, double modulation, warbling the spectrum by rotating condenser, super-heterodyne; travels to France and Italy to demonstrate his transmitter. Starts first vacuum tube course in U.S. at Harvard, 1920; work on regeneration in coupled circuits, 1924; elaborate equivalent circuits, 1929; works on electronic response of retina with Bovie (first application of vacuum tubes to biophysics; continued some work of Einthoven), 1920s. In 1930s, works on stimulation of autonomic responses in a monkey's brain (R. U. Light), and power tubes and non-linear systems; becomes chairman of Power Tubes Committee of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Also a short discussion of the invention of crystal oscillators by Cady, Pierce, and Arnold.
