In 1782, Alessandro Volta coined the term “semiconductor.” In 1833, Faraday became the first to notice the semiconductor effect. Silver sulfide’s electrical resistance decreases with increasing temperature, according to Faraday.
Karl Braun discovered the first semiconductor diode effect in 1874. Braun found that current flowed freely in just one direction at the contact between a metal point and a galena crystal. The first semiconductor device, named “cat whiskers,” was patented in 1901. Cat Whiskers was a radio wave detector that employed a point-contact semiconductor rectifier. The transistor is also a semiconductor-based device. In 1947, Bell Labs co-invented the transistor with John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley.