John Bardeen
John Bardeen
John Bardeen
Born
May 23, 1908
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Died
January 30, 1991 (aged 82)
Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality
American
Fields
Physics
Bell Labs
Institutions
University of Minnesota
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Alma mater
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Princeton University
Doctoral advisor
Doctoral students
Eugene Wigner
Nick Holonyak
John Schrieffer
Known for
Transistor
BCS theory
Nobel Prize in Physics (1956)
Notable awards
Nobel Prize in Physics (1972)
IEEE Medal of Honor (1971)
John Bardeen (May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist
and electrical engineer, the only person to have ever won the Nobel Prize
in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain
for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Neil
Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a fundamental theory of conventional
superconductivity known as the BCS theory.
The transistor revolutionized the electronics industry, allowing the
Information Age to occur, and made possible the development of almost
every modern electronical device, from telephones to computers to
missiles. Bardeen's developments in superconductivity, which won him his
second Nobel, are used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
In 1990, John Bardeen appeared on LIFE Magazine's list of "100 Most
[1]
Influential Americans of the Century."
] Early life
John Bardeen was born in Madison, Wisconsin on May 23, 1908.[2] He was the
second son of Dr. Charles Russell Bardeen and Althea Harmer Bardeen. He
was one of five children. His father, Charles Bardeen, was Professor of
Anatomy and the first Dean of the Medical School of the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. Althea Bardeen, before marrying, had taught at the
Dewey Laboratory School and run an interior decorating business; after
marriage she was an active figure in the art world.
Bardeen's talent for mathematics was recognized early. His seventh grade
mathematics teacher encouraged Bardeen in pursuing advanced work, and
years later, Bardeen credited him for "first exciting [his] interest in
mathematics."
Althea Bardeen became seriously ill with cancer when John was 12 years
old. Charles Bardeen downplayed the seriousness of her illness so that
it would not affect his children. John was stunned when his mother died.
Charles Bardeen married Ruth Hames, who was his secretary, to give his
children the family he thought they needed. However, this did not help
young John and he barely passed French that year.[3]
Bardeen attended the University High School at Madison for several years,
but graduated from Madison Central High School in 1923.[2] He graduated
from high school at age fifteen, even though he could have graduated
several years earlier. His graduation was postponed due to taking
additional courses at another high school and also partly because of his
mother's death. He entered the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1923.
While in college he joined the Zeta Psi fraternity. He raised the needed
membership fees partly by playing billiards. He was initiated as a member
of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. He chose engineering because
he didn't want to be an academic like his father and also because it is
mathematical. He also felt that engineering had good job prospects.[3]
Bardeen received his B.S. in electrical engineering in 1928 from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison.[4] He graduated in 1928 despite also
having taken a year off during his degree to work in Chicago.[5] He had
taken all the graduate courses in physics and mathematics that had
interested him, and, in fact, graduated in five years, one more than usual;
this allowed him time to also complete a Master's thesis, supervised by
Leo J. Peters. He received his M.S. in electrical engineering in 1929 from
Wisconsin.[4] His mentors in mathematics were Warren Weaver and Edward Van
Vleck. His primary physics mentor was John Hasbrouck van Vleck, but he
was also much influenced by visiting scholars such as Paul Dirac, Werner
Heisenberg and Arnold Sommerfeld.
Bardeen was unsuccessful in his 1929 application to Trinity College,
Cambridge, for one of their coveted fellowships.[5]
Bardeen stayed on for some time at Wisconsin furthering his studies, but
he eventually went to work for Gulf Research Laboratories, the research
[1]
arm of the Gulf Oil Company, based in Pittsburgh. From 1930 to 1933,
Bardeen worked there on the development of methods for the interpretation
of magnetic and gravitational surveys.[2] He worked as a geophysicist.
After the work failed to keep his interest, he applied and was accepted
to the graduate program in mathematics at Princeton University.[3]
Bardeen studied both mathematics and physics as a graduate student, ending
up writing his thesis on a problem in solid-state physics, under Nobel
laureate physicist Eugene Wigner. Before completing his thesis, he was
offered a position as Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard
University in 1935. He spent the next three years there, from 1935 to 1938,
working with Nobel laureate physicist John Hasbrouck van Vleck and
Bridgman on problems in cohesion and electrical conduction in metals, and
also did some work on level density of nuclei. He received his Ph.D. in
mathematical physics from Princeton University in 1936.[2]
Academic career
In the fall of 1938, Bardeen started in his new role as assistant professor
at the University of Minnesota.
In 1941, the world was embroiled in war, and Bardeen was convinced by his
colleagues to take a leave of absence and work for the Naval Ordnance
Laboratory. He would stay there for four years. In 1943 he was invited
to join the Manhattan Project, but he refused, since he did not want to
uproot his family. He received the Meritorious Civilian Service Award for
his service at the NOL.
After the end of World War II, Bardeen started seeking a return to academia,
but the University of Minnesota did not realize the importance of the young
field of solid-state physics. They offered him only a small raise.
Bardeen's expertise in solid-state physics made him invaluable to Bell
Labs, which was just starting a solid-state division. Remembering the lack
of support he had received previously from the university to pursue his
research, he decided to take a lucrative offer from Bell Labs in 1945.
Bell Labs
In October 1945, John Bardeen began work at Bell Labs. Bardeen was a member
of a Solid State Physics Group, led by William Shockley and chemist Stanley
Morgan. Other personnel working in the group were Walter Brattain,
physicist Gerald Pearson, chemist Robert Gibney, electronics expert
Hilbert Moore and several technicians. He moved his family to Summit, New
Jersey. John Bardeen had met William Shockley when they were both in school
in Massachusetts. He rekindled his friendship with Walter Brattain.
Bardeen knew Walter Brattain from his graduate school days at Princeton.
He had previously met Brattain through Brattain's brother, Bob Brattain.
Bob Brattain was also a Princeton graduate student. Over the years the
friendship of Bardeen and Brattain grew, both in the lab, where Brattain
put together the experiments and Bardeen wove theories to explain the
results and also on the golf course where they spent time on the weekends.
The assignment of the group was to seek a solid-state alternative to
fragile glass vacuum tube amplifiers. Their first attempts were based on
Shockley's ideas about using an external electrical field on a
semiconductor to affect its conductivity. These experiments mysteriously
failed every time in all sorts of configurations and materials. The group
was at a standstill until Bardeen suggested a theory that invoked surface
states that prevented the field from penetrating the semiconductor. The
group changed its focus to study these surface states, and they met almost
daily to discuss the work. The rapport of the group was excellent, and
ideas were freely exchanged.[6] By the winter of 1946 they had enough
results that Bardeen submitted a paper on the surface states to Physical
Review. Brattain started experiments to study the surface states through
observations made while shining a bright light on the semiconductor's
surface. This led to several more papers (one of them co-authored with
Shockley), which estimated the density of the surface states to be more
than enough to account for their failed experiments. The pace of the work
picked up significantly when they started to surround point contacts
between the semiconductor and the conducting wires with electrolytes.
Moore built a circuit that allowed them to vary the frequency of the input
signal easily and suggested that they use glycol borate (gu), a viscous
chemical that didn't evaporate. Finally they began to get some evidence
[7]
of power amplification when Pearson, acting on a suggestion by Shockley,
put a voltage on a droplet of gu placed across a P-N junction.
The invention of the transistor
A stylized replica of the first transistor invented at Bell Labs on December 23, 1947.
Main articles: Transistor and History of the transistor
In the spring of 1947, William Shockley set Brattain and Bardeen to a task
to explain why an amplifier he had devised didn't work. At the heart of
the amplifier was a crystal of silicon. They would switch to germanium
after some months. To figure out what was going on, Bardeen had to remember
some of the quantum mechanics research that he had done on semiconductors
while he was completing his Ph.D. at Princeton University. Bardeen had
also come up with some new theories himself. By observing Brattain's
experiments, Bardeen realized that everyone had been falsely assuming
electrical current traveled through all parts of the germanium in a
similar way. The electrons behaved differently at the surface of the metal.
If they could control what was happening at the surface, the amplifier
should work.
On December 23, 1947, Bardeen and Brattain—working without
Shockley—succeeded in creating a point-contact transistor that achieved
amplification. By the next month, Bell Labs' patent attorneys started to
[8]
work on the patent applications.
Bell Labs' attorneys soon discovered that Shockley's field effect
principle had been anticipated and patented in 1930 by Julius Lilienfeld,
who filed his MESFET-like patent in Canada on October 22, 1925.[9] Although
the patent appeared "breakable" (it could not work), the patent attorneys
based one of its four patent applications only on the Bardeen-Brattain
point contact design. Three others submitted at the same time covered the
electrolyte-based transistors with Bardeen, Gibney and Brattain as the
inventors. Shockley's name was not on any of these patent applications.
This angered Shockley, who thought his name should also be on the patents
because the work was based on his field effect idea. He even made efforts
to have the patent written only in his name, and told Bardeen and Brattain
of his intentions.
At the same time, Shockley secretly continued his own work to build a
different sort of transistor based on junctions instead of point contacts;
he expected this kind of design would be more likely to be viable
commercially. Shockley worked furiously on his magnum opus, Electrons and
Holes in Semiconductors, which was finally published as a 558-page
treatise in 1950. In it, Shockley worked out the critical ideas of drift
and diffusion and the differential equations that govern the flow of
electrons in solid state crystals. Shockley's diode equation is also
described. This seminal work became the "bible" for an entire generation
of scientists working to develop and improve new variants of the
transistor and other devices based on semiconductors.
Shockley was dissatisfied with certain parts of the explanation for how
the point contact transistor worked and conceived of the possibility of
minority carrier injection. This led Shockley to ideas for what he called
a "sandwich transistor." This resulted in the junction transistor, which
was announced at a press conference on July 4, 1951. Shockley obtained
a patent for this invention on September 25, 1951. Different fabrication
methods for this device were developed but the "diffused-base" method
became the method of choice for many applications. It soon eclipsed the
point contact transistor, and it and its offspring became overwhelmingly
dominant in the marketplace for many years. Shockley continued as a group
head to lead much of the effort at Bell Labs to improve it and its
fabrication for two more years.
Shockley took the lion's share of the credit in public for the invention
of transistor, which led to a deterioration of Bardeen's relationship with
Shockley.[10] Bell Labs management, however, consistently presented all
three inventors as a team. Shockley eventually infuriated and alienated
Bardeen and Brattain, and he essentially blocked the two from working on
the junction transistor. Bardeen began pursuing a theory for
superconductivity and left Bell Labs in 1951. Brattain refused to work
with Shockley further and was assigned to another group. Neither Bardeen
nor Brattain had much to do with the development of the transistor beyond
[11]
the first year after its invention.
The "transistor" (a combination of "transfer" and "resistor") was 1/50
as large as the vacuum tubes it replaced in televisions and radios and
allowed electrical devices to become more compact.[1]
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
A commemorative plaque remembering John Bardeen and the theory of superconductivity, at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
By 1951, Bardeen was looking for a new job. Fred Seitz, a friend of Bardeen,
convinced the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to make Bardeen
an offer of $10,000 a year. Bardeen accepted the offer and left Bell Labs.[8]
He joined the engineering faculty and the physics faculty at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1951. He was Professor of
Electrical Engineering and of Physics at Illinois. His first Ph.D. student
was Nick Holonyak (1954), the inventor of the first LED in 1962.[12]
At Illinois, he established two major research programs, one in the
Electrical Engineering Department and one in the Physics Department. The
research program in the Electrical Engineering Department dealt with both
experimental and theoretical aspects of semiconductors, and the research
program in the Physics Department dealt with theoretical aspects of
macroscopic quantum systems, particularly superconductivity and quantum
liquids.[13]
He was an active professor at Illinois from 1951 to 1975 and then became
Professor Emeritus.[1]
The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956
In 1956, John Bardeen shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with William
Shockley of Semiconductor Laboratory of Beckman Instruments and Walter
Brattain of Bell Telephone Laboratories "for their researches on
semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".[14]
Bardeen first heard the news that the Nobel Prize in Physics had been
awarded to him, Brattain and Shockley when he was making breakfast and
listening to the radio on the morning of Thursday, November 1, 1956.[15]
The Nobel Prize ceremony took place in Stockholm, Sweden, on the evening
of Monday, December 10. Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley received their
awards that night from King Gustaf VI Adolf and then adjourned for a great
banquet in their honor. On that night the three men were together, and
they remembered the days when they had been friends and a great research
[15]
team.
Bardeen brought only one of his three children to the Nobel Prize ceremony.
His two sons were studying at Harvard University, and Bardeen did not want
to disrupt their studies. King Gustav scolded Bardeen because of this,
and Bardeen assured the King that the next time he would bring all his
children to the ceremony.[15]
BCS theory
Main article: BCS theory
In 1957, John Bardeen, in collaboration with Leon Cooper and his doctoral
student John Robert Schrieffer, proposed the standard theory of
superconductivity known as the BCS theory (named for their initials).[1]
BCS theory explains conventional superconductivity, the ability of
certain metals at low temperatures to conduct electricity without
electrical resistance. BCS theory views superconductivity as a
macroscopic quantum mechanical effect. It proposes that electrons with
opposite spin can become paired, forming Cooper pairs. Independently and
at the same time, superconductivity phenomenon was explained by Nikolay
Bogoliubov by means of the so-called Bogoliubov transformations.
In many superconductors, the attractive interaction between electrons
(necessary for pairing) is brought about indirectly by the interaction
between the electrons and the vibrating crystal lattice (the phonons).
Roughly speaking the picture is the following:
An electron moving through a conductor will attract nearby positive
charges in the lattice. This deformation of the lattice causes another
electron, with opposite "spin", to move into the region of higher positive
charge density. The two electrons are then held together with a certain
binding energy. If this binding energy is higher than the energy provided
by kicks from oscillating atoms in the conductor (which is true at low
temperatures), then the electron pair will stick together and resist all
kicks, thus not experiencing resistance.
The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972
In 1972, John Bardeen shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Leon Neil
Cooper of Brown University and John Robert Schrieffer of the University
of Pennsylvania for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity,
usually called the BCS-theory.[16]
Bardeen did bring all his children to the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm,
Sweden.[15]
This was Bardeen's second Nobel Prize in Physics. He became the first
person to win two Nobel Prizes in the same field.[17] He also became the
third person out of only four to win two Nobel Prizes. The first two were
Marie Curie, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 1911, and Linus Pauling, who received the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry in 1954 and Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. In 1980, Frederick
Sanger won his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry and became the fourth person
to win two Nobel Prizes.[18]
Bardeen gave much of his Nobel Prize money to fund the Fritz London
[19]
Memorial Lectures at Duke University.
Other awards
In 1971, Bardeen received the IEEE Medal of Honor for "his profound
contributions to the understanding of the conductivity of solids, to the
invention of the transistor, and to the microscopic theory of
superconductivity."
On January 10, 1977, John Bardeen was presented with the Presidential
Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford. He was represented at the
ceremony by his son, William Bardeen.
Bardeen was one of 11 recipients given the Third Century Award from
President George H. W. Bush in 1990 for "exceptional contributions to
American society" and was granted a gold medal from the Soviet Academy
of Sciences in 1988.
Xerox
Bardeen was also an important advisor to Xerox Corporation. Though quiet
by nature, he took the uncharacteristic step of urging Xerox executives
to keep their California research center, Xerox PARC, afloat when the
parent company was suspicious that its research center would amount to
little.
Death
Bardeen died of heart disease at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston,
Massachusetts, on January 30, 1991. Although he lived in Champaign-Urbana,
he had come to Boston for medical consultation.[1] Bardeen and his wife
Jane (1907–1997) are buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, WI.[20] They
were survived by three children, James & William and Elizabeth Bardeen
Greytak, and six grandchildren.[1]
Personal life
Bardeen married Jane Maxwell on July 18, 1938. While at Princeton, he met
Jane during a visit to his old friends in Pittsburgh.
Bardeen was a man with a very unassuming personality. While he served as
a professor for almost 40 years at the University of Illinois, he was best
remembered by neighbors for hosting cookouts where he would cook for his
friends, many of whom were unaware of his accomplishments at the
university. He enjoyed playing golf and going on picnics with his
family.[12]
It has been said that Bardeen proves wrong the stereotype of the "crazy
scientist."[12] Lillian Hoddeson, a University of Illinois historian who
wrote a book on Bardeen, said that because he "differed radically from
the popular stereotype of genius and was uninterested in appearing other
than ordinary, the public and the media often overlooked him."[12]
Legacy
In honor of Professor Bardeen, the
engineering quadrangle at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is named
the Bardeen.
Also in honor of Bardeen, Sony Corporation
endowed a $53 million John Bardeen
professorial chair at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, beginning
in 1990. The current John Bardeen
Professor is Nick Holonyak, Bardeen's
first doctoral student and protege.
At the time of Bardeen's death,
then-University of Illinois chancellor
Morton Weir said, "It is a rare person
whose work changes the life of every
American; John's did."[17]
Quotation
Near the end of this decade, when
they begin enumerating the names of
the people who had the greatest
impact on the 20th century, the name
of John Bardeen, who died last week,
has to be near, or perhaps even
arguably at, the top of the list... Mr.
[sic] Bardeen shared two Nobel
Prizes and won numerous other
honors. But what greater honor can
there be when each of us can look all
around us and everywhere see the
reminders of a man whose genius has
made our lives longer, healthier and
better.
— "Chicago Tribune"
Editorial, February 3, 1991
Bardeen was honored on a March 6, 2008, United States postage stamp as
part of the "American Scientists" series. The $0.41 stamp was unveiled
in a ceremony at the University of Illinois.[21] His citation reads:
"Theoretical physicist John Bardeen (1908–1991) shared the Nobel Prize
in Physics twice -- in 1956, as co-inventor of the transistor and in 1972,
for the explanation of superconductivity. The transistor paved the way
for all modern electronics, from computers to microchips. Diverse
applications of superconductivity include infrared sensors and medical
imaging systems." The other scientists on the "American Scientists" sheet
include Gerty Cori, biochemist; Linus Pauling, chemist; and Edwin Hubble,
astronomer.
References
Cited references
1. ^ a b c d e f g "John Bardeen, Nobelist, Inventor of Transistor, Dies". Washington Post.
1991-01-31. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1047095.html. Retrieved
2007-08-03.
2. ^ a b c d "Biography of John Bardeen". The Nobel Foundation.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1956/bardeen-bio.html. Retrieved
2007-11-01.
3. ^ a b c "Biography of John Bardeen 1". PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/bardeen/index.html. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
4. ^ a b "Curriculum Vitae of John Bardeen". The Nobel Foundation.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1972/bardeen-cv.html. Retrieved
2007-11-01.
5. ^ a b David Pines (2003-05-01). "John Bardeen: genius in action". physicsworld.com.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/17406. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
6. ^ Brattain quoted in Crystal Fire p. 127
7. ^ Crystal Fire p. 132
8. ^ a b "Biography of John Bardeen 2". PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/bardeen/bardeen2.html. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
9. ^ US patent 1745175 "Method and apparatus for controlling electric current" first
filing in Canada on 22.10.1925
10. ^ Diane Kormos Buchwald. American Scientist 91.2 (Mar.-Apr. 2003): 185-86.
11. ^ Crystal Fire p. 278
12. ^ a b c d "Nice Guys Can Finish As Geniuses at University of Illinois in
Urbana-Champaign.". Knight Ridder News Service (Chicago Tribune). 2003-01-25.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-96919218.html. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
13. ^ "Biography at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign". The University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/history/bardeen.htm.
Retrieved 2007-11-06.
14. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956". The Nobel Foundation.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1956/index.html. Retrieved
2007-11-06.
15. ^ a b c d "Biography of John Bardeen 3". PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/bardeen/bardeen3.html. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
16. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972". The Nobel Foundation.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1972/index.html. Retrieved
2007-12-19.
17. ^ a b "Physicist John Bardeen, 82, transistor pioneer, Nobelist". Chicago Sun-Times.
1991-01-31. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4038249.html. Retrieved
2007-08-03.
18. ^ "Nobel Laureates Facts". The Nobel Foundation.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/nobelprize_facts.html. Retrieved 2007-12-19.
19. ^ "Fritz London Memorial Prize". Duke University.
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hm/flondonprizeawards.html. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
20. ^ http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralhistorian/383446449/, Accessed 9-30-2009.
21. ^ "Bardeen Stamp Celebrated at Campus Ceremony". University of Illinois.
http://www.engr.uiuc.edu/news/?xId=072808960714. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
General references
•
Hoddeson, Lillian and Vicki Daitch. True Genius: the Life and Science of John Bardeen.
National Academy Press, 2002. ISBN 0-309-08408-3
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Bardeen
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The Bardeen Archives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Biography from the Nobel Foundation
Biography from Nobel-Winners.com
IEEE History Center biography
IEEE 2nd Int. Conference on Computers, Communications and Control (ICCCC 2008),
an event dedicated to the Centenary of John Bardeen (1908-1991)
Associated Press Obituary of John Bardeen as printed in The Boston Globe
Oral History interview transcript with John Bardeen 12, 16 May, 1, 22 December 1977 &
4 April 1978, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
Oral History interview transcript with John Bardeen 13 February 1980, American Institute
of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
Interview with Bardeen about his experience at Princeton
The American Presidency Project
John Bardeen at Find a Grave
U.S. Patent 2,524,035 -- "Three-Electrode Circuit Element Utilizing Semiconductive
Materials"