Physics Question

[IQ89]

Saw some documentary about Einstein. They said that because of his lack of interest in quantum physics, he missed out on discoveries like the transistor. My question: How is quantum physics directly related to the design/development of the transistor?

Thanks

[MelchyBeau]

One reason is to understand how a transistor works you need to understand how an electron will behave in certain conditions, specifically, NPN and PNP, and how this will allow/prevent flow of electrons. Specifically what I am talking about is carrier generation and recombination.

But you need to understand semiconductors, and to understand semiconductors you need to understand electron band structure which means you have to apply Pauli's exclusion principle along with everything else. etc etc etc

so How does QM directly relate to transistors? They do in the same way solid state physics relates to Quantum mechanics

[BruceZ]

The Ebers-Moll transistor model comes from an approximate solution to the Schroedinger equation for a crystal lattice potential.