Scribd
Upload
37 views1 page

5

The late 19th century marked significant advancements in electrical engineering, transforming electricity into a vital component of modern life through the contributions of notable figures like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Key discoveries, such as Heinrich Hertz's work on ultraviolet light and Albert Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect, laid the groundwork for the quantum revolution and practical applications like solar panels. The development of solid-state devices, particularly transistors, revolutionized electronics, leading to compact and mass-producible technologies.

Uploaded by

Subhan Ahmad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
37 views1 page

5

The late 19th century marked significant advancements in electrical engineering, transforming electricity into a vital component of modern life through the contributions of notable figures like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Key discoveries, such as Heinrich Hertz's work on ultraviolet light and Albert Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect, laid the groundwork for the quantum revolution and practical applications like solar panels. The development of solid-state devices, particularly transistors, revolutionized electronics, leading to compact and mass-producible technologies.

Uploaded by

Subhan Ahmad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

While the early 19th century had seen rapid progress in electrical science, the late 19th century

would see the greatest progress in electrical engineering. Through such people as Alexander
Graham Bell, Ottó Bláthy, Thomas Edison, Galileo Ferraris, Oliver Heaviside, Ányos Jedlik, William
Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Charles Algernon Parsons, Werner von Siemens, Joseph
Swan, Reginald Fessenden, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, electricity turned from a
scientific curiosity into an essential tool for modern life.
In 1887, Heinrich Hertz[19]:843–44[20] discovered that electrodes illuminated with ultraviolet light
create electric sparks more easily. In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper that explained
experimental data from the photoelectric effect as being the result of light energy being carried in
discrete quantized packets, energising electrons. This discovery led to the quantum revolution.
Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for "his discovery of the law of the
photoelectric effect".[21] The photoelectric effect is also employed in photocells such as can be found
in solar panels and this is frequently used to make electricity commercially.
The first solid-state device was the "cat's-whisker detector" first used in the 1900s in radio receivers.
A whisker-like wire is placed lightly in contact with a solid crystal (such as a germanium crystal) to
detect a radio signal by the contact junction effect.[22] In a solid-state component, the current is
confined to solid elements and compounds engineered specifically to switch and amplify it. Current
flow can be understood in two forms: as negatively charged electrons, and as positively charged
electron deficiencies called holes. These charges and holes are understood in terms of quantum
physics. The building material is most often a crystalline semiconductor.[23][24]
Solid-state electronics came into its own with the emergence of transistor technology. The first
working transistor, a germanium-based point-contact transistor, was invented by John
Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain at Bell Labs in 1947,[25] followed by the bipolar junction
transistor in 1948.[26] These early transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to
manufacture on a mass-production basis.[27]:168 They were followed by the silicon-
based MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor), invented
by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959.[28][29][30] It was the first truly compact
transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses,

You might also like