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GERALD L. PEARSON
1905-1987
BY JOHN G. LINVILL
GERALD L. PEARSON, professor emeritus of electrical engineer-
ing at Stanford University, died on October 25,1987, at the age
of eighty-two. He was a key participant in the research effort at
the Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL), which brought the
transistor and related semiconductor devices into being. In 1960
he took early retirement from the Bell Laboratories and initiated
a faculty career at Stanford in the newly started solid-state
electronics program. His faculty career, which started when he
was fifty-five, produced thirty outstanding Ph.D. graduates and a
rare kind of professional colleagueship with faculty members
and Ph.D. students as well as a continuing flow of personal
research results.
Gerald Pearson was born in Salem, Oregon, on March 31,
1905. He attended WilIamette University in Salem and obtained
an A.B. in mathematics and physics in 1926. In 1927 he under-
took graduate study at Stanford and obtained his M.A. in physics
in 1929. He went directly to the Bell Telephone Laboratories to
begin his career as a research physicist.
Pearson's research at BTL in temperature-sensitive resistors
had an important impact on the telecommunications industry.
His work lecT to thirteen patents related to thermistors. Then he
joined the research group at Bell Laboratories doing funciamen-
tal research on semiconductor materials. He conceived and
carried out an elegant series of experiments on semiconductors,
211
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212
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
experiments that were crucial in identifying physical moclels of
behavior of materials, Injunctions, and semiconductor devices.
His experimental results were essential to the development of
models of semiconductor behavior developer] by his colleagues
William Shockley and John Bardeen, models that led to new
device and systems conceptions in an industry just being born.
His best-known invention is the silicon solar battery, which
evolved into the power source for satellite communication. He
invented the solar battery jointly with C. S. Fuller and D. M.
Chapin.
In the late 1 950s Stanford University was initiating a semicon-
ductor electronics program and planning an industry-class ex-
perimental facility to promote research that could only succeed
in such a facility. Pearson's experience and perspective were
central to the realization of that objective. He joined the Stan-
ford faculty in 1960 and made the transition from the Bell
Laboratories to Stanford with rare flexibility and insight. He
promptly developed a team of research students, mastered the
task of getting governmental support for his and their research,
and established expectations in his team for excellence of work
ant! publication that had long characterized his research at Bell
Laboratories. One of Pearson's BTL colleagues remarked that
when new facets of solid-state research emerged, he usually
found that Pearson had already done a few definitive experi-
ments. That characteristic continued at Stanford, where he
undertook research on compound semiconductors and set up
one of the first university programs in that area. When he
became emeritus professor in 1970, his research activity was at
full volume. He was recalled to active duty annually through his
seventy-ninth year.
GeralcI Pearson's careerwas rich with recognition and awards.
In 1956 Willamette University, his undergraduate school, con-
ferred on him an honorary doctoral degree. In 1968 he was
elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering
and, later, to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.
He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a life member of the
Franklin Institute and the Telephone Pioneers of America.
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GERALD L. PEARSON
213
Pearson received theJohn ScottAward from the city of Philadel-
phia Board of Directors of Trusts, the John Price Wetherill
Medal from the Franklin Institute, the Meclal Mariana Smolu-
chowskiego from the Polish Physical Society, the Golden Plate
Award from the American Academy of Achievement, the Solid
State Science and TechnologyAwarc! from The Electrochemical
Society, and the 1981 Gallium Arsenide Symposium Award from
Japan.
Gerald Pearson was a colleague inclined to work procluctively
and congenially outside his own domain. As an experimentalist,
he sought and was sought by theoreticians. In the university he
was a colleague to other academic types but also retained his
contacts with inclustrial contemporaries who valued his work
and ideas. He bridged the generations in the university, working
closely with the graduate student population even while he was
an emeritus faculty member. He left a trail of constructive
interactions because of his intellectual and professional stan-
darcis and magnanimous personality.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
faculty career
