Gerald Pearson ( born 31.03.1905) - an American physicist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was born in Salem. He graduated from Stanford University (1929). In 1929-60 he worked at the Bell Telephone Laboratories (in 1957 —60 as head of the applied solid-state physics department), and in 1960 —71 he was professor at Stanford University.
His work concerned solid-state physics, semiconductor physics and solid-state electronics. He studied processes in photocells, transistors and diodes, noise in electron tubes and resistors, and contact erosion. In 1948, together with W. Shockley, he detected the field effect, which was of great importance for the invention of the transistor. Together with Shockley and J. Haynes he carried out detailed studies of the amplification effect and of the controlled injection of charge carriers in semiconductors; with J. Bardeen he studied a large number of silicon samples with different phosphorus and sulfur content and examined the mechanism of scattering by donors and acceptors (1949). In 1954 he constructed the first solar batteries from silicon p-n junctions connected in series.
A member of the National Academy of Engineering. The M. Smoluchowski Medal (1976).