A BIT OF HISTORY AND THE ACCEPTANCE OF NEW IDEAS

I have come upon a quote attributed to William James the American psychologist and philosopher on the subject of making a new discovery: “First … attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obviously insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it”.

This quote is eerily reminiscent of an experience of mine.  Long ago, while with the Semiconductor Products Department of the General Electric Company, I came upon what I thought was a truly significant discovery, to wit, the ability to control the surface of PN junctions so that the true bulk reverse breakdown characteristic of the junction could be realized. PN junctions of the time would show reverse breakdown of ~300 volts while possessing internal breakdown values of ~2,000 volts.  Moreover the limited 300 volt value represented only a fraction of the “yield” of a production line.  On an afternoon, and following a truly simple insight ^(1), I found that I could fabricate junctions that displayed reverse breakdown at the theoretical 2,000 volt value every time. This represented a fundamental technological advance and had been a goal of the device development effort of the Department (and the reason for my job!). From that period forward events ensued exactly as William James foretold.

My first inclination was to convey my excitement to my supervisor by demonstrating the advanced characteristic that I had found.  I remember well his comment: “There isn’t anything new in this – we have seen this occasionally before.”   I persisted for weeks in my effort, reminding him of what I had seen – but with no response.  At this point I must recount how the development came to be recognized.  One of the engineers in charge of a production line (“medium current rectifiers”) was a good friend of mine. Following my friendly haranguing, he finally agreed to place his technicians at my disposal to etch devices following my prescription.  Again, I remember well the results – their complete wonder at never having seen anything like this before.  They actually had to send out to another GE facility for a high voltage power supply with which to test the devices! So at this point the ability to fabricate every device to 2,000 volt theoretical breakdown had been demonstrated.

And then began the second phase which James so presciently saw.  The applications group of the Department charged with applying any new developments retorted in essence as follows: “so you can achieve high voltage breakdown – but who needs it!” (the technology of electrical power conversion would indeed benefit as history has shown from the ability to block high voltages ⁽²⁾).

And then came the final nail in the coffin – the Department’s marketing group concluded that the innovation could not be introduced as it would adversely affect sales of current (inferior!) products.

At this point I gave up and transferred to the Space Sciences Laboratory of the company to apply the effect to development of solid state radiation detectors - the solid state analogue of the vacuum tube photomultplier (subsequently becoming known as “electron avalanche detectors”).

I will comment on James’ final phase only to say that my name appears on the initial U.S. patent only because of a diligence of the GE patent attorney who noted that the witnessed entry in my patent notebook preceded all others.

GCH

Ojai, CA

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⁽¹⁾ The first of a series of patents:  U.S. Patent No. 3,491,272 – “Semiconductor Device with Increased Voltage Breakdown Characteristics”, Jan 20, 1970, (Patents also applied for in France and the Soviet Union).

⁽²⁾ The development went on to making feasible the fabrication of silicon power conversion devices with breakdown in excess of 7,000 volts and this development in a greater sense made possible the high voltage transmission of electrical power.