[NJARC] Interesting Obit

[John Ruccolo]

Morgan Sparks, Bell Scientist, Dies at 91

The New York Times via Dow Jones

  Publication Date: Thursday May 08, 2008 
  Metropolitan Desk; Section B; Page 6; Column 
  c. 2008 New York Times Company 
 
  By DOUGLAS MARTIN 

  Morgan Sparks, who made critical contributions to
developing the
second-generation transistor, which became a building
block of modern electronic
devices, died on Saturday  at his daughter's home in
Fullerton, Calif. He was
91. 

  The cause was congestive heart failure, his son
Gordon said. 

  In 1947, transistors were invented at Bell Telephone
Laboratories, the
research arm of AT&T. They were intended to replace
the vacuum tube as a device
to control electric current. Vacuum tubes had made
radios, long-distance calling
and other modern amenities possible, but used lots of
power, operated at hot
temperatures and burned out rapidly. 

  As part of the scientific team led by William
Shockley, the Bell labs
scientists Walter Brattain and John Bardeen used
semiconductors in the first
patented  transistor. Semiconductors are so called
because they are poorer
carriers of electricity than conductors like copper,
but not poor enough to be
called insulators. 

  A transistor is like a controllable valve by which a
weak signal controls a
much larger flow. By turning on and off, transistors
signal the ones and zeros
that combine to signify information stored in a
computer. 

  Transistors quickly proved to be much more efficient
than vacuum tubes, and
never stopped leaping in efficiency. A microchip can
contain hundreds of
millions of transistors integrated in design through
which transistors
successively and almost instantaneously amplify
electrical signals to do things
as diverse as operate a microwave oven or control
slipping car wheels. 

  But the first transistors depended on two hair-thin
wires resting on a tiny
speck of germanium, the initially preferred
semiconductor material. Despite
having much greater amplifying power than vacuum
tubes, those early transistors
were noisy in an electronic sense and unreliable. They
were also very fragile,
unsuitable for use in consumer products. 

  Dr. Shockley conceived of a totally different
approach, beginning in early
1948 with solitary work in a Chicago hotel room as a
meeting of the American
Physical Society was held downstairs. 

  The new transistor would look like a sandwich, with
two layers of one type of
semiconductor surrounding a second kind. But Dr.
Shockley's team had to address
challenge upon challenge. The first was proving that
electricity could travel
straight across a crystal instead of around the
surface. Richard Haynes, a
physicist, was a leader in this. 

  Gordon Teal, working with the engineer John Little,
figured out how to build a
large single crystal of germanium, an achievement that
meant current flow could
last up to 100 times longer than it had in the old cut
crystals. 

  Dr. Sparks worked with Dr. Teal to develop
techniques to add impurities to
crystals to control the electrical flow. Dr. Sparks
also found a way to make the
middle layer of the semiconductor sandwich thinner
than a sheet of paper, which
prevented the current from becoming unfocused. 

  In Philadelphia, on Dec. 31, 1951, Bell announced
its improved transistor,
calling it a junction transistor. It amplified a
signal 100,000 times and
occupied just 1/400th of a cubic inch. By contrast, a
typical subminiature
vacuum tube occupied about an eighth of a cubic inch. 

  "Transistors of this type," Dr. Shockley said, "are
much more efficient than
the older type and consume far less power." 

  Soon, the new junction transistors were in countless
portable radios, and
their distant descendants are now in thousands of
other kinds of useful devices.


  Morgan Sparks was born on July 6, 1916, in Pagosa
Springs, Colo., where his
father owned a hardware store. His quick intelligence
led to his skipping first
and fifth grades.  When he was 9, the family moved to
Harlingen, Tex., where Mr.
Sparks attended a nearby community college for a year,
working at a soda counter
to pay expenses. 

  He won a scholarship to Rice University, where he
earned his bachelor's and
master's degrees in chemistry. He then earned his
doctorate in physical
chemistry at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, in 1943 as a
Rockefeller Foundation fellow. 

  He next joined Bell Labs, where he first worked on
electrical storage
experiments involving elements like tantalum and
niobium, then called columbium.
He was also assigned to wartime projects like
developing batteries that could
operate in seawater, for electric torpedoes and
downed-aviator missions. 

  In 1997 interview with Electronic Engineering Times,
Dr. Sparks said  there
were monthly meetings on the transistor projects
involving chemists, physicists,
metallurgists and electronics engineers. Dr. Shockley
met with his group at
least once a week. Dr. Sparks remembered Dr. Shockley
as having greater insight
into materials than anybody he had known. 

  Dr. Sparks moved up the management ladder, and in
1972 was sent to New Mexico
as president of Sandia National Laboratories, which
was then managed by AT&T. In
1981, he retired from the Bell system to be dean of
the Robert O. Anderson
School of Management at the University of New Mexico. 

  Dr. Sparks's wife of 57 years, the former Elizabeth
MacEvoy, died in 2006. In
addition to his son Gordon, who lives in Waitsfield,
Vt., he is survived by
another son, Morgan, of Burlington, Vt.; his daughters
Margaret Potter of
Waitsfield and Patricia Fusting of Fullerton, Calif.;
and six grandchildren. 

  Mr. Sparks's wife was a secretary at Bell Labs
during his early years there.
While the scientists and engineers created modern
electronics, the scientists
kept her busy changing the keys on her typewriter to
register foreign languages
and exotic mathematical symbols. 

  PHOTO: Morgan Sparks (PHOTOGRAPH BY SANDIA NATIONAL
LABORATORIES) 

  (END) 

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Copyright (c) 2008 The New York Times Company.