Making homemade transistors (or at least trying)

http://josepino.com/diy/making-homemade-transistors

by tmcb • 14 years ago

37 4 14 years ago

We made transistors in a freshman class at Caltech in 1986. I seem to recall that there was hydrofluoric acid and a furnace involved. HF is nasty stuff.

joe_bleau• 14 years ago

A few years ago, I scanned some of the lab and TA notes from that class (~1991 vintage) for a guy that wanted to DIY some semiconductors in his garage. Neat project; I should try to locate him and see if he made any progress.

tzs• 14 years ago

Those who enjoy that might enjoy this video showing the making of a homemade vacuum tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzyXMEpq4qw

hetman• 14 years ago

I also enjoyed the early history of the transistor (pre Bell Labs) linked to from that site: http://www.porticus.org/bell/belllabs_transistor1.html

It really does emphasise how most inventions are collective efforts building on many incremental steps and seldom moments of sheer eureka type brilliance.

Making homemade transistors (or at least trying)

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