Most of the initial efforts to create transistors were hamstrung not by a shortage of brainpower or a lack of imagination but by the absence of truly reliable materials. That very first transistor made by Brattain and Bardeen at Bell Labs in 1947 was made not of silicon but germanium. However, germanium was ill-suited for use as a transistor. It didn’t function very well at high temperatures, something that is deeply inconvenient given semiconductors can, as you’ll know if you’ve worked your laptop hard while perching it on your knees, get very hot. Silicon, with its high melting point, was a
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