City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

304 NOTES TO PAGES 147–151
of attenuation in glass optical waveguides,’’ Applied Physics Letters 22, No. 7,
pp. 307–309 (Apr. 1, 1973).
Chapter 12
1. David Newman, interview, Dec. 1, 1994.
2. The name diode comes from a two-terminal vacuum tube, which like a
semiconductor diode conducts current in only one direction.
3. Applying the voltage in the direction that makes the current flow is called
forward-biasing the diode; applying it in the opposite direction is called reversebiasing.
A high enough reverse-bias voltage will tear valance electrons free from
atoms, making current flow in a process called ‘‘breakdown,’’ but we won’t worry
about that.
4. Robert N. Hall, quoted in Jeff Hecht, Laser Pioneers, (Academic Press, Boston,
1991, p. 181).
5. Strictly speaking, the second law holds that in a closed system, any irreversible
process must inevitably increase the entropy, a measure of disorder. Real
processes are irreversible, so entropy invariably increases. The quote is from Robert
Rediker, telephone interview, Dec. 11, 1996. Many details also are in Robert
H. Rediker, ‘‘Research at Lincoln Laboratory leading up to the development of the
injection laser in 1962,’’ IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics QE-23, No. 6,
pp. 692–695, June 1987.
6. Hall, quoted in Hecht, Laser Pioneers.
7. Keyes gave his paper in early July 1962; the journal received Hall’s paper
77 days later, on Sept. 24. R. N. Hall, Gunther E. Fenner, J. D. Kingsley, T. J.
Soltys, and R. O. Carlson, ‘‘Coherent light emission from GaAs junctions,’’ Physical
Review Letters 9, pp. 366–368 (Nov. 1, 1962).
8. Marshall I. Nathan, ‘‘Invention of the injection laser at IBM,’’ IEEE Journal
of Quantum Electronics QE-23, No. 6, pp. 679–683 (June 1987); Marshall I. Nathan,
W. P. Dumke, G. Burns, F. H. Dill, Jr., and G. Lasher, ‘‘Stimulated emission
of radiation from GaAs p-n junctions,’’ Applied Physics Letters 1, pp. 62–64 (Nov.
1, 1962).
9. Nick Holonyak, Jr., ‘‘Semiconductor alloy lasers—1962,’’ IEEE Journal of
Quantum Electronics QE-23, No. 6, pp. 684–691 (June 1987); Nick Holonyak, Jr.,
and S. F. Bevacqua, ‘‘Coherent (visible) light emission from Ga(As 1�x P x) junctions,’’
Applied Physics Letters 1, pp. 82–83 (Dec. 1962).
10. T. M. Quist, R. H. Rediker, R. J. Keyes, W. E. Krag, B. Lax, A. L. Mc-
Whorter, and H. J. Zeiger, ‘‘Semiconductor maser of GaAs,’’ Applied Physics Letters
1, pp. 91–92 (Dec. 1962).
11. G. F. Dalrymple, B. S. Goldstein, and T. M. Quist, ‘‘A solid-state roomtemperature
operated GaAs laser transmitter,’’ Proceedings of the IEEE 52, No. 12,
pp. 1742–1743 (Dec. 1964). To be fair, diode lasers ran at much lower voltage
and thus lower power, but that was a tremendous current to put through a crystal
as big as a grain of sand.
12. H. Kroemer, ‘‘A proposed class of heterojunction injection lasers,’’ Proceedings
of the IEEE 51, pp. 1782–1783 (Dec. 1963).
13. Nick Holonyak, Jr., telephone interview, July 24, 1996.
14. Zhores Alferov, ‘‘The history and future of the semiconductor heterostructures
from the point of view of a Russian scientist,’’ Physica Scripta T68, pp. 32–