John N. Shive joined Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1939. Shive worked initially on physical research and device development, and later on education and training. After retirement from industry, he worked as an adjunct professor of physics at Georgian Court University. The spherical sundial on campus, in front of the bookstore and next to the library, is dedicated to his memory.
Transistor development
On January 30, 1948 Shive discovered that gold-plated tungsten point contacts on a p-type layer of germanium grown on an n-type substrate gave "a terrific triode effect". On February 13, he also discovered that a transistor consisting of bronze contacts on the surface of an n-type substrate without a p-layer gave "gains up to 40× in power!" He leveraged this discovery to build a point contact transistor with bronze contacts on the front and back of thin wedge of germanium, proving that holes could diffuse through bulk germanium and not just along the surface as previously thought. This confirmed William Shockley's idea that it should be possible to build a junction transistor, an idea that hitherto he had kept secret from the rest of the team. Shockley later admitted that the workings of the team were "mixture of cooperation and competition". He also admitted that he kept some of own work secret until his "hand was forced" by Shive's 1948 advance.
Phototransistor
In 1948 Shive invented the phototransistor that used a beam of light, instead of a wire, as the emitter of a point contact transistor, generating holes that flow to the collector. Bell Labs announced the invention in 1950. The phototransistor was eventually used in the nationwide direct distance dialing system.
Shive wave machine
Shive was a gifted lecturer, and became Director of Education and Training at Bell Telephone Laboratories. He was responsible for curriculum and administration of educational programs provided to employees of Bell Laboratories. In this new role, he invented the Shive wave machine. The wave generator illustrates wave motion using a series of steel rods joined by a thin torsion wire which transmits energy from one rod to the next. The high moment of inertia of each rod ensures the wave takes several seconds to traverse the entire series of rods, making the dynamics easily visible. The motion is analogous to high-frequency waves that are invisible to the human eye, such as electromagnetic waves on a transmission line. The wave generator could illustrate wave reflection, standing waves, resonance, partial reflection, and impedance matching. Shive made two educational films in which he demonstrated the machine, Simple Waves and Similarities in Wave Behavior, and wrote a book with the same name as the latter. Today, the Exploratorium Exhibit Services manufactures a large-scale version of the machine for use in science museums and schools.
Patents
Shive held several patents including Selenium rectifier and method of making it, Directly heated thermocouple, Photoresistive translating device, Selenium rectifier including tellurium and method of making it, Apparatus for and method of treating selenium rectifiers, Semiconductor photoelectric device, Conditioning of semiconductor translators, Semiconductor amplifier, and Alternating gate current.
Books
Shive authored three books during his career, beginning with The Properties, Physics, and Design of Semiconductor Devices, a book about semiconductor devices. This was followed by Similarities of Wave Behavior, a book designed to help college professors teach students about waves using the machine he invented. His last book, Similarities in Physics, was coauthored with Robert L. Weber. He was also one of the editors of Transistor Technology, Volume 1.
