12) Dr. Bardeen's Visit at Research Institute


The members of Research Institute with Dr. Bardeen

It was 1953 when John Bardeen, who was one of the transistor inventors, visited Research Institute for Electrical Communication Laboratory which led Japanese transistor R&D activities. The International Conference of Theoretical Physics was held in Japan this year and he participated in the academic meeting, and dropped in the Research Institute in this opportunity. The outstanding solid state physics researchers worldwide gathered in this academic meeting, and this year became a memorable year when Japanese researchers first achieved a part of the clan of an international society.
The members of Research Institute strain their eyes in the photograph, surrounding Bardeen.
Later, Toshifumi Asakawa among them told an inside story as follows.
"The characteristic of the junction transistor produced in the Institute was shown to him by the curve tracer made by the Institute. The current amplification factor of the junction transistor produced by the Institute was only about 0.6 to 0.8, and it was much too unsatisfactory as a transistor performance, and I intentionally adjusted the curve-tracer so that the current gain of our transistor appeared to be about 0.99. He was carefully watching the gain performance."
I feel a bit guilty about this, even though you might call it rashness of youth.
(Co-authored by Nishizawa and Ouch. The title is "Semiconductor Development in Japan.")
(Photo: by courtesy of Toshifumi Asakawa)

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