First-Hand:The Diffusion Mode Operation of FET Devices

Keats Pullen

I joined AlEE in about 1937. I was awarded the Caltech and Los Angeles area student paper prize in 1939. I had two letters published in Electrical Engineering in the early 1940s: one describing a matrix evaluation technique, and the other, pointing out the intermodulation consequences of the use of a field winding on a dynamic speaker as a filter choke. What I called "crossproducts" is now called "intermodulation."

In addition to these contributions, I have carried on independent research in a wide spectrum of electronics areas, ranging from circuits and active devices through propagation studies, and early development of procedures for calculation of patterns of complex antenna structures, including determination of the effective terminal resistance. Most of this work was rejected by various IEEE (and IRE) groups for presentation and/or publication.

I was perhaps the first to develop the theory of information engineering as a crucial element in electronics engineering, a subject not accepted in IEEE circles. I developed improved methods of presenting /design data on active devices based on physical principles, another subject, likewise, not accepted.

I was the first to define the diffusion mode of operation of FET devices (overlooked by Dr. Shockley). This mode of operation was noted in a letter, Proceedings, IEEE, January, 1966. The basic principle of operation, disclosed in U.S. patent #327 4462, is vital to computer MOS and CMOS applications and to the development of FETs capable of operating to 100 GHz and more. Many letters to editors have been published on this, but no papers were accepted.