ABSTRACT
I am looking at this text on my computer’s 23 inch (57.5 cm)-wide and less than 1 inch (about 2 cm)-thick color monitor and later I am going to watch my color TV set which is 46 inch (1 m 12 cm) wide and also about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick (today even 70 inch (1 m 75 cm) TV sets are also available). I just realized that this marvel of technology exists because of the existence of its “brain” the so-called “thin-film transistor” (TFT). What very few people know that it was the result of the continuation of the research first resulting in the development of the “amorphous Silicon” (a-Si) thin-film solar cell. This simply means that the flat panel display which is being produced in bigger and bigger sizes and purchased and watched by millions of people was the result of the continuation of the development of thin-film solar cells.Dr. David E. Carlson142 was a research scientist at the world famous RCA Sarnoff Research Laboratory in Princeton, NJ. His research project was to use gases, which in an electric field, 142A part of the story described in this chapter is from notes made by Dr. Carlson and provided them to me.
