Gunn Diode - History

History

The Gunn diode is based on the Gunn effect, and both are named for the physicist J. B. Gunn who, at IBM in 1962, discovered the effect because he refused to accept inconsistent experimental results in gallium arsenide as "noise", and tracked down the cause. Alan Chynoweth, of Bell Telephone Laboratories, showed in June 1965 that only a transferred-electron mechanism could explain the experimental results. The interpretation refers to the Ridley-Watkins-Hilsum theory.

The Gunn effect, and its relation to the Watkins-Ridley-Hilsum effect entered the monograph literature in the early 1970s, e.g. in books on transferred electron devices and, more recently on nonlinear wave methods for charge transport. Several other books that provided the same coverage were published in the intervening years, and can be found by searching library and bookseller catalogues on Gunn effect.

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