William Bradford Shockley was born on February 13, 1910 in London, United Kingdom. His American parents were living in London for work. Father William Hillman Shockley was a mining engineer. And Ma May Shockley was the head of the Mineral Resources Survey. Both parents are highly educated and working in high positions. Due to this and being the only child, William Shockley became a man with special knowledge and nobility from his childhood.

William Shockley

At the age of three, in 1913, he returned to the United States with his parents in Palo Alto, California. Their neighbor was Stanford University physics professor Pearly Ross. Professor Ross loved Shockley very much. Under his influence, Shockley became interested in physics from an early age.

Shockley's parents themselves gave primary education to Shockley at home. He was then admitted to the Palo Alto Military Academy. Then to Hollywood High School. After finishing school in 1927, he entered the University of California in Los Angeles. After studying there for a year, he went to California Institute of Technology or Caltech. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from there in 1932. After graduation, Shockley received a teaching assistantship at MIT. He earned his PhD in physics from MIT in 1936 by researching the wave function of electrons in crystals of sodium chloride.

Shockley had great expertise in solid state physics. After receiving his PhD, he got a job at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Telephone technology was not very strong at that time. Large vacuum tubes were used in the transmitter and receiver. The quality of the sound would have been greatly reduced if the telephone cable had been used to send sound over a distance of more than 1,500 km. The noise increased and nothing of the original sound could be heard. William Shockley's first research project at Bell Telephone Laboratory was to develop a better vacuum tube. With the help of these it is possible to increase the volume of the sound.

Shockley tried to apply the theory of solid state semiconductor. But semiconductors like germanium or silicon were not yet readily available. In 1939, Shockley proposed the theory of the field effect transistor, while also trying to make it in the laboratory. His plan was to greatly improve the telephone system by replacing vacuum tubes with transistors. But before that plan could be implemented, World War II broke out.

During World War II, Bell Laboratories conducted research on a number of projects for the United States Army. Shockley was responsible for the electronic design of the radar equipment. In 1942, he was appointed director of the US Navy's Antisubmarine Operations Research Group. The US Navy developed many effective methods of destroying submarines under his supervision. From 1944 until the end of World War II, he served as a war expert for the US government. Shockley enjoyed inventing new war tactics.

After the war, Shockley returned to Bell Labs. Lab President Marvin Kelly created a research group to better understand semiconductor physics. The possibility of using semiconductors in electronics was emerging then. Some strange cults of silicon cells have been discovered at that time. Their theory has not yet been established. Appointed Supervisor of Shockley Research Group. He selectively brought budding physicists into his group. He brought young scientists like John Bardin, Walter Brattain, Gerald Pearson, Morgan Sparks to his research group.

The application of quantum theory to solid state physics was just beginning. Shockley used germanium and silicon point contact detectors as radar detectors during World War II. This time he tried to invent the field effect transistor in the same way. According to quantum physics calculations, conducting current in a germanium filament should regulate the current like a grid in a vacuum tube. But Shockley did not get the expected results in the laboratory. Not only that, he could not find any credible reason why he was not getting the expected results.

John Burdeen got new ideas from the failure of Shockley's experiment. Burdeen's explanation was as follows—when current is applied to a germanium semiconductor, some electrons are trapped on its surface. Due to these trapped electrons, even when placed in an electric field, the electrons can no longer enter the semiconductor crystal or glass. A number of experiments were designed at Bell Labs to test the validity of this idea. John Bardin and Walter Brattain performed these experiments. William Shockley was not directly involved. Bardin and Brattain invented the first point contact transistor.

As talented as he was, Shockley was immensely admired. He would claim credit for anything. His research group invented the first transistor, but he could not accept that he would not get the credit. After the transistor was patented by Bardin and Brattain and its experimental use began, Shockley invented the junction transistor. He got the patent of that transistor.

In 1950 William Shockley wrote his first book Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors. The book was used as a bible by solid state researchers of the time. Transistor production started from 1951. A revolution began in the world of electronics.

William Shockley, one of the heroes of this revolution, no one doubted that. He was full of new scientific research ideas. Every week he called a meeting and announced the results of new research. Toitumbur was always enthusiastic. He was outstanding as an inventor. Received more than 90 patents. In 1951, at the age of 41, he was elected a Fellow of the American National Academy of Sciences. He was the youngest fellow at that time.