germanium

20 Articles

Do You Know Rufus Turner?

February 15, 2016 by 44 Comments

It is hard to be remembered in the electronics business. Edison gets a lot of credit, as does Westinghouse and Tesla. In the radio era, many people know Marconi and de Forest (although fewer remember them every year), but less know about Armstrong or Maxwell. In the solid-state age, we tend to remember people like Shockley (even though there were others) and maybe Esaki.

If you knew most or all of those names without looking them up, you are up on your electronics history. But do you know the name Rufus Turner?
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400 Transistors And 1800 Resistors Form This 1967 Personal Computer

October 29, 2015 by 58 Comments

What kind of computer could you build in 1967? Well, if you were reading Wireless World (a UK magazine) and had a good bit of spare cash, you could build [Brian Crank’s] Wireless World Computer. You only needed 400 germanium transistors, 1800 resistors, and an odd number of capacitors, switches, diodes, and neon bulbs. You also needed a good bit of patience, we suspect.

In 1967, the computer cost about 50 pounds to build (perhaps $125 at 1967 exchange rates which would now be about $900 in today’s money). To save parts (and thus money and build complexity), the computer used a trick: it processed data one bit at a time. Many older computers did this, including another UK computer named EDSAC.

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Graphene Grown On Semiconductors Big Step Toward Manufacturability

October 14, 2015 by 11 Comments

No modern technology has been met with more hype than graphene. These single-layer sheets of carbon promise everything from incredibly efficient power grids to more advanced electronics to literal elevators to space. Until now, though, researchers have yet to produce graphene sheets or ribbons in a reliable way. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the US Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory have done just that, growing graphene nanoribbons on the surface of a germanium crystal.

By using a germanium crystal as a substrate, the researchers have found a directionality to the way these graphene nanoribbons form. This has been a problem for researchers experimenting with graphene microelectronics in the past; labs experimenting with making transistors out of carbon nanotubes found growth is highly unpredictable. The controlled growth of graphene nanoribbons opens the door to more precise fabrication, something that is necessary for microelectronics fabrication.

Synthesis of nanoribbons this small have not been possible before. Because germanium itself is a semiconductor – and was used for the first transistor – this discovery may pave the way for the creation of graphene-based circuits grown using the same semiconductor fabrication processes used today.

Retrotechtacular: The Genesis Of The Transistor

January 14, 2014 by 36 Comments

Few births are easy. Even fewer result in a Nobel Prize, and hardly any at all are the work of three men. This 1965 film from the AT&T archives is a retrospection on the birth of the transistor nine years after its creators, [Walter Brattain], [John Bardeen], and [William Shockley] received a Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery and implementation of the transistor effect.

The transistor is the result of the study of semiconductors such as germanium. Prior to the research that led directly to the transistor, it was known that the conductivity of semiconductors increases when their temperature is raised. The converse is true for metals such as tungsten. Semiconductor conductivity also increases when they are exposed to light. Another key to their discovery is that when a metal such as copper is in contact with a semiconductor, conductivity is less in one direction than the other. This particular property was exploited in early radio technology as seen in crystal radios, for copper oxide rectifiers used in telephony, and for microwave radar in WWII.

After WWII, AT&T’s Bell Labs put a lot of time and research into the study of semiconductors, as their properties weren’t fully understood. Researchers focused on the simplest semiconductors, silicon and germanium, and did so in two areas: bulk properties and surface properties. During this time, [Shockley] proposed the field effect, supposing that the electrons near the surface of a semiconductor could be controlled under the influence of an external electric field.

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Building A Germanium Fuzz Face Guitar Pedal

December 27, 2010 by 24 Comments

Rock in the new year with a guitar pedal you built yourself. [Doug Kovach] took the time to share his project with us in the video after the break. He starts with a bit of history of the artists that have used fuzz pedals similar to this one. It seems great guitarists have been hacking since way back. [Doug’s] rendition uses the warm sounds of germanium transistors in a design that produces professional results. But if you need something a little bit less serious try the stomp-box.

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Making Point Contact Transistors

November 5, 2010 by 15 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmotkjMSKnI&w=470]

[Jeri Ellsworth] is back at it again. We seem to cover her work a lot here. Her latest video above covers how she created a point contact transistor from a 1N34 germanium cat whisker diode. After opening the glass casing on the diode, she uses sharpened phosphor bronze metal from common electrical connectors as the collector and emitter. A 330 microfarad capacitor charged to 20 volts and then discharged though a 680 ohm resistor to the base and collector leads forms the collector region. Her test jig is a simple oscillator circuit such that a properly formed transistor will start the circuit oscillating and make and audible sound. We look forward to more esoteric knowledge of electronic devices being brought to our attention.