Negative feedback
Fundamentally, all electronic devices that provide power gain (e.g., vacuum tubes, bipolar transistors, MOS transistors) are nonlinear. Negative feedback trades gain for higher linearity (reducing distortion) and can provide other benefits. If not designed correctly, amplifiers with negative feedback can under some circumstances become unstable due to the feedback becoming positive, resulting in unwanted behavior such as oscillation. The Nyquist stability criterion developed by Harry Nyquist of Bell Laboratories is used to study the stability of feedback amplifiers.