Gerald Pearson
Gerald Leondus Pearson (born March 31, 1905 in Salem , Oregon , † October 25, 1987 in Portola Valley , California ) was an American physicist . Together with Calvin Souther Fuller and Daryl Chapin, he was one of the inventors of the solar cell (1954) at Bell Laboratories .
Life
Pearson studied math and physics from Willamette University with a bachelor's degree and physics from Stanford University with a master's degree. From 1927 he was at Bell Laboratories. After his retirement in 1960, he went to Stanford University, where he helped to develop research on III-V semiconductors as a professor .
Initially he developed temperature-dependent resistors ( thermistors ) at Bell Labs , held 13 patents in this area and then went into semiconductor research in the group of William Bradford Shockley . In addition to basic research, he also developed rectifiers for high performance.
In 1954, together with Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller, he developed the silicon solar cell, then known as solar battery (not to be confused with solar battery ). The initiator of the development was Chapin, who was specifically looking for semiconductors to generate energy from sunlight, which was known in principle from the discovery of the photosensitivity of pn junctions by Russell Ohl at Bell Labs (1940). In order to have the largest possible surface area available in the pn junction, the recently developed technique of producing pn junctions with diffusion was ideal. The prototype was created at the end of 1953 by diffusing boron (p-type) into silicon (n-type). The launch of the solar cell by Bell Laboratories in 1954 was a major media event. It was soon used by the military and in 1958 in the Vanguard I satellite .
In 1935 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society . In 1963 he received the John Price Wetherill Medal with Chapin and Fuller . In 1970 Pearson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 2008 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame .
Fonts
- DM Chapin, CS Fuller, GL Pearson: A New Silicon pn Junction Photocell for Converting Solar Radiation into Electrical Power . In: Journal of Applied Physics . tape 25 . American Institute of Physics, May 1954, ISSN 0021-8979 , p. 676-677 ( A New Silicon pn Junction Photocell for Converting Solar Radiation into Electrical Power [PDF]).
Web links
- Inductee: Gerald L. Pearson. National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Individual evidence
- ^ Vast Power of the Sun Is Tapped By Battery Using Sand Ingredient . In: The New York Times . The New York Times Company, April 26, 1954, ISSN 0362-4331 , pp. 1 ( nytimes.com [PDF]).
- ^ Mark Burgess: Diffusion Technologies at Bell Labs. 2010.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pearson, Gerald |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pearson, Gerald L. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 31, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Salem , Oregon |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 25, 1987 |
| Place of death | Portola Valley , California |