Walter Houser Brattain

Walter Houser Brattain
Brattain in 1956
Born(1902-02-10)February 10, 1902
DiedOctober 13, 1987(1987-10-13) (aged 85)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Known forInventing the point-contact transistor (1947)
Spouses
Karen Gilmore
(m. 1935; died 1957)
    Emma Jane Miller
    (m. 1958)
    Children1
    RelativesRobert Brattain (brother)
    Awards
    Scientific career
    FieldsSolid-state physics
    InstitutionsBell Labs (1929–1967)
    Doctoral advisorJohn Torrence Tate Sr.

    Walter Houser Brattain (/ˈbrætən/; February 10, 1902 – October 13, 1987) was an American solid-state physicist who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Bardeen and William Shockley for their invention of the point-contact transistor. Brattain devoted much of his life to research on surface states.