On Apr 12, 8:51 am, "ronwer"
wrote:
Hi!

I am doing a study into the early use of silicon diodes in radar and
communication equipment during the Second World War.

What I would be interested in is as follows:

-type numbers of the diodes
-name/type number of radar/communication equipment
-technical infor on those systems
-info on producers
-pictures of actual diodes, also "in" the circuits
-anecdotal stories about the actual use
-anything else!

The information will be used for an on-going study project related to
practical application of minerals (i.e. quartz) in industry and technology.

So, since this is an aspect of a broader study, other quartz-related info
would
be most appreciated, especially about early use of piezoelectric
quartz crystals in electronic equipment.

If you'd prefer, answering off-list is possible:



Thanks for ANY help!

Ronald
Norway

I thought at that point in time, practical diodes were all germanium
point contact types, at least the ones used for RF detection. But I
see from some web searching that I was wrong about that. The series
of articles at this site may be interesting:
http://www.computerhistory.org/semic...Discovery.html.
That page mentions that the P-N junction was discovered by a
researcher using purified silicon in 1940. Robert Buderi's book, "The
Invention that Changed the World: How a small group of radar pioneers
won the Second World War and launched a technological revolution,"
might be a good place to do some research too. I'd have a look in it
to see what he says about silicon diodes, but my copy is at my office
at the moment.

Quartz crystals for frequency control were used somewhat before that.
This paper: http://www.ieee-uffc.org/fc_history/bottom.html says that
a piece of quartz was used to control the frequency of an oscillator
in 1919. Perhaps that is the first. I know there was a lot of
interest in quartz crystals among amateur radio operators/builders in
the 1930's. If you can find copies of QST or other ham magazines from
that era, I'll bet you can find articles about quartz crystals.

Cheers,
Tom