"Neodymium" wrote in message
...
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.


Thanks for this link, hadn't seen this site before! Excellent info!


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.

I knew that one. I also bought a number of old magazines on eBay with
atricles about piezoelectronic quartz crystals.

WW-II info on diodes has been more difficult so far.

Thanks!

Ronald
Norway



I've a R1359 UHF receiver. It formed part of the UK's 'Home chain' radar
network. Tuning is via a diode stuck in the end of what looks a circular
Lecher line.
Diode is marked with the military designation 'CV364' and is same package as
the IN23 series. I never found any data on this diode but for curiosity took
it out and measured it. Germanium!.