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Carver Mead Builds the First Schottky-Barrier Gate Field Effect Transistor

1965 to 1966
Carver Mead, photograph by Norman Seeff.

Carver Mead, photograph by Norman Seeff.

In 1965 American electrical engineer and computer scientist Carver Mead of Caltech built the first working Schottky-barrier gate field-effect transistor: GaAs (gallium arsenide) MESFET (metal-semiconductor field effect transistor). This key amplifying device became a mainstay of high-frequency wireless electronics, used in microwave communication systems from radio telescopes to home satellite dishes and cellular phones. Using band-gap-engineered materials, the device evolved into the HEMT (High-electron-mobility transistor).

Mead, "Schottky Barrier Gate Field Effect Transistor," Proceedings of IEEE 54 (1966) 307−308.

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