The pace of the work picked up significantly when they started to surround point contacts between the semiconductor and the conducting wires with electrolytes. He became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes in the same field. The transistor paved the way for all modern electronics, from computers to microchips. By using the TMS website you are agreeing to the terms of the TMS Privacy Policy. [8] He worked as a geophysicist. After finishing high school at age 15, John Bardeen entered the University of Wisconsin and, in spite of his interest and ability in mathematics and physics, studied electrical engineering, receiving a B.S. [44] SONY Corporation owed much of its success to commercializing Bardeen's transistors in portable TVs and radios, and had worked with Illinois researchers. The foundation of modern electronics rests on much of John Bardeen's work on the conductivity of solids. [44] Although he lived in Champaign-Urbana, he had come to Boston for medical consultation. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Bardeen received a PhD in mathematics from Princeton University. For more information on this award, view the bylaws. He received his PhD in mathematical physics in 1936. [7], In 1972, Bardeen shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Leon N Cooper of Brown University and John Robert Schrieffer of the University of Pennsylvania "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory". Instead of finishing his graduate education, Bardeen followed a University of Wisconsin professor to Pittsburgh to work (1930-1933) for Gulf Research and Development Corporation on problems dealing with oil exploration. Occasionally, TMS or its third party vendors may use cookies, tags, and web beacons when you browse the TMS website. John Bardeen (/bɑːrˈdiːn/; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991)[3] was an American physicist. For more information on this award, view the bylaws. Each letter should be no longer than one page. Please select one of the options below to confirm your communication preferences with TMS: Please select an option before submitting. He kept his promise. The award is made annually to a student or students enrolled in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The nominator’s supporting letter should be no more than two pages. You must be a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, enrolled in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Moore built a circuit that allowed them to vary the frequency of the input signal easily and suggested that they use glycol borate (gu), a viscous chemical that didn't evaporate. His work shed light on nearly every corner of the field of solid-state physics and the conductivity of solids. Bardeen continued his research throughout the 1980s, and published articles in Physical Review Letters[29] and Physics Today[30] less than a year before he died. [18] Bell Labs management, however, consistently presented all three inventors as a team.