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Born in London, England
William Bradford Shockley was born in London, England, the son of William Hillman Shockley, a mining engineer born in Massachusetts and his wife, Mary (née Bradford) who had also been engaged in mining, being a deputy mineral surveyor in Nevada. William B. Shockley – Biographical. NobelPrize.org.
Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Tue. 12 Nov 2024. -
Shockley spent two years at Palo Alto Military Academy, then briefly enrolled in the Los Angeles Coaching School to study physics and later graduated from Hollywood High School
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Shockley earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Caltech
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Shockley married Jean Alberta Bailey. They had two sons, William and Richard, and a daughter, Alison Lanelli.
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Shockley went to MIT on a teaching fellowship. He obtained his Ph.D. degree.
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William Shockley received his first patent, "Electron Discharge Device", on electron multipliers.
Lojek, B. (2021). Appendix: Shockley’s Patents, Papers and Presentations. In: William Shockley: The Will to Think. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65958-5_16 -
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WW2
Shockley turned to military projects during World War II. He was first employed on the electronic design of radar equipment at Bell Labs. He then became research director of the Antisubmarine Warfare Operations Research Group set up by the Navy Department at Columbia University. -
Shockley returned to Bell Labs following the conclusion of WW2.
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William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.
Isaacson, Walter The Innovators. Simon and Schuster, 2014. -
William Shockley files the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor.
Lojek, B. (2021). Appendix: Shockley’s Patents, Papers and Presentations. In: William Shockley: The Will to Think. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65958-5_16 -
William Shockley invents the junction transistor.
Bell Labs and primarily William Shockley announced the invention of the junction transistor at a press conference in Murray Hill, NJ, the first week of July, 1951. Sources vary as to when the formal announcement was actually made, July 4 or July 5. By Suzanne Deffree
https://www.edn.com/bell-labs-announces-junction-transistor-july-5-1951/ -
Shockley started the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories in the Stanford industrial park
Shockley, William. "Memorandums," "Golden West Theme Book" and "Record," in Shockley Papers, Accession Listing 95-153, Box 2B, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA. -
Divorced in 1955, and in the same year Shockley married Emmy Lanning.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942-1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964 -
William Shockley wins the Nobel prize for physics jointly with his two former colleagues at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942-1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964 -
Development of the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET)
Cao, W., Bu, H., Vinet, M. et al. The future transistors. Nature 620, 501–515 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06145-x -
William Shockley became a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee on Scientific and Technical Manpower
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William Shockley was selected as recipient of the Holley Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942-1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964 -
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William Shockley view on eugenics and racism
Shockley was a known believer of eugenics who published prolifically in support of racist policies and racist ideas, including forced sterilization for those with lower IQ, a test result he correlated with Blackness. H. Holden Thorp ,Shockley was a racist and eugenicist.Science378,683-683(2022).DOI:10.1126/science.adf8117 -
Development of the insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)
Cao, W., Bu, H., Vinet, M. et al. The future transistors. Nature 620, 501–515 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06145-x -
Shockley died of prostate cancer
By Robert Longley
Published on April 24, 2020
https://www.thoughtco.com/biography-of-william-shockley-4843200