The History of Semiconductor Devices
June 25th, 2008There is a detached class of substances that is named semiconductors. This type was discovered in early 1980's but there were no required technologies to carry on the further experiments. The analysis of semiconductors was carried on just in the 1920's. The first successful experiment was performed by the Russian scientists in 1923. They proved that semiconductors can be used to accelerate fluctuations. But such parts as diodes which are utilized today were invented significantly later. Only in the beginning of the 60's with the invention of transistors in 1949 the wide use of crystal detectors started. Since then a lot of persons all over the world become interested in such kind of substance as semiconductors.
The concern to optical features of semiconductors revived due to research of induced emission in semiconductors. First laser device was developed with utilizing of semiconductors. The first version was based on p - n barriers, the latest ones - on heterojunction.
Nowadays we can see a great deal of different diodes that work with help of use of semiconductors. Semiconductor substances have been studying for not so long but radio electronics and lots of other sciences can't do without usage of them.
The conductivity of semiconductors is situated in range between conductivity of metals and conductivity of isolators. That characteristic is caused the division of semiconductors as a divided type. There are several elements that are basically used to create the semiconductor devices. They are germanium, selenium, silicon, etc.
It sounds a bit strange but scientists didn't want to perform experiments of semiconductors for a long time. The first researches of semiconductors were begun by famous soviet scientist Abram Ioffe. He noticed that this amazing type of matter has got some unique characteristics and determined how they can be utilized. Any semiconductor system has got such main characteristics as electron and hole conduction. These features may be modified by means of adding some admixtures or modifying temperature. To get the features that are needed for the experiment or appropriate use of device some admixtures are added to semiconductors.
Almost every sphere of modern technologies means use of semiconductors. Diodes, transistors and thyristors are the most often used systems. The wide application of semiconductors began not so long ago but today they are really broadly utilized. There are systems based on semiconductors which can convert luminous and heat energy into electric power and vice versa. Heat and cold may be developed by some types of semiconductors. Such devices as radio receivers, atomic batteries, quantum generator, microprocessors etc include semiconductors. Almost every worker who works in organization related to electricity ought to know how significant the current sensors are. If we compare devices operating on semiconductors and tube devices we will see that semiconductors are considerably smaller and lighter. The analogue devices are not equal if we speak about their reliability and power. Tube falls behind.
There are a lot of different devices today, that significantly facilitate our life and all such inventions appear just thanks to the semiconductor systems.