Research
- Bell Labs is Alcatel-Lucent's research & development organization.
- Alcatel-Lucent spent €2.5 billion for R&D in 2008.
- Alcatel-Lucent spent €2.4 billion for R&D in 2009.
- Alcatel-Lucent Bell-Labs currently has 27,600 active patents.
- 2,100 patents granted in 2009 alone.
- Is involved in 100 worldwide standardization bodies.
In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first patent for the telephone, and subsequently started AT&T. Bell Labs is named in his honor.
In 1937 Clinton Davisson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating the wave nature of matter. His fundamental work is part of the foundation for much of today's solid-state electronics.
In 1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley of Bell Labs invented the transistor. In 1956 they received a Nobel Prize for their invention. The transistor led to an electronics revolution during the post-war boom. The transition from vacuum tubes to transistors enabled all technologies to be built on a smaller scale and use less electricity. Items that before required large dedicated spaces, could now fit nicely into a home or even on a kitchen counter.
In 1954 Gerald Pearson, Darryl Chapin, and Calvin Fuller invented the solar cell. Telstar, the first active communications satellite also developed by Bell Labs and launched in 1962, used these solar cell batteries as an external renewable source of power once launched. It was the first to carry live television over water, between England and the US.
In the late 1950s Charles Townes and Arthur Shawlow of Bell Labs invented the laser, which has numerous applications, including measuring/cutting in the manufacturing industry and research/surgery in the medical industry. Bell Labs was awarded the laser patent in 1960.
In 1969 Dennis Ritchie and a team of Bell Labs employees invented the UNIX operating system and the C programming language. Over the years Unix had many variants, including Linux (currently powering the Google Android) and Apple OS (used on the iPhone). C and C++ are still widely used today and are the basis of Java.
In 2006 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith were awarded the National Academy of Engineering prize, for work on charge-coupled devices which transform patterns of light into useful digital information. In 2009 they received a Nobel Prize for their invention. The device is widely used in digital cameras, video cameras and modern astronomy.
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