Walter Houser Brattain Walter Houser Brattain Walter Houser Brattain (; February 10, 1902 – October 13, 1987) was an American physicist at Bell Labs who, along with fellow scientists John Bardeen and William Shockley, invented the point-contact transistor in December 1947. They shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention. Brattain devoted much of his life to research on surface states. Walter Brattain was born in Xiamen, Fujian, China, to American parents Ross R. Brattain and Ottilie Houser Brattain. Ross R. Brattain was a teacher at the Ting-Wen Institute, a private school for Chinese boys. Both parents were graduates of Whitman
General Electric Research Laboratory bulb filament, providing a more durable and long-lasting light filament than the existing technology. "The invention secured GE's technological leadership in the market and epitomized the role of the GE research lab — bringing innovation to the marketplace." But, that work was still an improvement on existing technology and nothing entirely new. In the coming years, GE scientists earned two Nobel Prizes in chemistry and physics. In 1932, Irving Langmuir won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on surface chemical reactions which helped him develop the gas-filled light bulb in 1916. After patenting many inventions, Langmuir developed his