Talk:Oskar Heil

message: I found a citation of this paper, but haven't verified what it says:
The other transistor: early history of the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor
Arns, R.G.  
This paper appears in: Engineering Science and Education Journal
Publication Date: Oct 1998
Volume: 7,  Issue: 5
On page(s): 233-240
ISSN: 0963-7346
References Cited: 36
CODEN: ESEJEJ
INSPEC Accession Number: 6074651
Posted online: 2002-08-06 22:06:18.0
Abstract
The silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET or MOS transistor) 
did not become significant commercially until two decades after the 1948 announcement of 
the invention of the transistor by Bell Laboratories. The underlying concept of the 
MOSFET-modulation of conductivity in a semiconductor triode structure by a transverse 
electric field-first appeared in a 1928 patent application. It was confirmed experimentally 
in 1948. However early devices were not practical due to surface problems. Although these 
were solved at Bell Laboratories in 1958, Bell remained committed to earlier transistor 
technology. Development of the `other transistor' was first pursued elsewhere. It was 
finally the needs of computers and the opportunities created by integrated circuits that 
made the silicon MOSFET the basic element of late 20th-century digital electronics.
It was referenced from this book page:
To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-Up Companies, and the Rise of Mos Technology,
by Ross Knox Bassett, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, p.408.
which says:
:One of the more intriguing questions behind the transistor is the work preceding it by Julius Lilienfeld and Oskar Heil.  The best introduction to this work is Robert G. Arns, "The Other Transistor: Early History of the Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor," Engineering Science and Education Journal 7 (October 1998): 223–40.
There are quite a few scholar.google.com hits at ieeexplore, so I need to renew my account and get some of those to read.  
And I just found another with Google books: High Dielectric Constant Materials, edited by Howard Huff, David Gilmer, 2004, which says:
:... While Lilienfeld didn't use the word Field-Effect Transistor (FET), Oskar Heil did in British patent number 439457, dated March 2, 1934. Heil became the first person to use the term semiconductor. While neither ever gained from these patents, these works established the basis of all modern-day MOS technology, even though neither author was cognizant of the concept of an inversion layer.  That is, the technology was not there to build it. ...
Anyone care to write this up for the article?
Dicklyon 17:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: About 20 years ago, Dr Heil told me that, when he was working in Germany, a co-worker developed a device for studying quantum levels in ionized gases. He joked that he talked the guy out of working on it, because it had no practical use -- and thereby stymied the invention of the gas laser! ("No practical use" was what Dr Heil said. This struck me as odd, because scientists generally don't worry about whether research has "practical" use.)
I have no printed or Web reference for this, but perhaps the author of this article might be able to find one. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 21:20, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: scotching the laser