Walter Houser Brattain

1902-1987

American physicist who was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics, with John Bardeen and William Shockley, for research on semiconductors and creating the transistor. Brattain joined BellTelephone Laboratories in 1929.

Shockley arrived in 1936 and designed various semiconductor devices that Brattain built and tested. After a 22-month war hiatus they were joined by Bardeen. Brattain and Bardeen completed the first working transistor in 1947. Brattain successfully constructed an improved transistor by 1950.