Principles of Analog Electronics

Semiconductor Components

273

Curiosities

The name diode comes from dielectrodes, that is, two electrodes.

Braun (Karl Ferdinand Braun, German inven-

tor, 1850 –1918, Figure 8.21) in 1899 patented a

device made of a single metal wire, wittily called

a cat’s whisker, soft contacting a semiconduc-

tor crystal. The device realized the fundamental

rectifying effect.

In 1909, Braun shared the Nobel Prize in

Physics with Guglielmo Marconi.

A diode can be considered the electrical version

of a mechanical valve and early diodes were actu-

ally called valves. But this was not very accurate,

since mechanical valves are devices by which the

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