Bardeen, John

Bardeen, John (bärdēn') [key], 1908–91, American physicist, b. Madison, Wis., grad. Univ. of Wisconsin (B.S. 1928, M.S. 1929), Ph.D. Princeton, 1936. He was a research physicist at the Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1945 to 1951. In 1951 he became professor of electrical engineering and physics at the Univ. of Illinois. He is known for his studies of semiconductors and other aspects of solid state physics. He shared with Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in developing the transistor. He also shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leon Cooper and John Schreiffer for development of a theory of superconductivity, becoming the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice in the same field.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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