A Timeline of Bell Labs

By alecbcs
  • Creation of Volta Labratory

    Creation of Volta Labratory

    Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the Volta Prize and used the money to start fund Volta Laboratory which later became Bell Labs after being purchased jointly by AT&T and Western Electric.

  • Renamed to Bell Labs

    The Volta/Bell Laboratory was officially renamed to Bell Labs under a partnership between Western Electric and AT&T in order to consolidate the research activities of the Bell System.

  • Long-distance Transmition

    Bell Labs successfully transmitted long-distance television images of Herbert Hoover from DC to New York.

  • Radio Waves from the Center of the Galaxy

    A researcher at Bell Labs named Karl Jansky discovered that radio waves were being emitted from the center of the galaxy while he was working to pin down a source of static in his experiments on shortwave radio communications.

  • Invention of Stereophonic Recordings

    Bell Labs records and transmits stereophonic recordings of the Philadelphia Orchestra live from Philadelphia to DC.
  • The Creation of the Transistor!

    The Creation of the Transistor!

    John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor!

  • Improvements to Transistors

    While working at Bell Labs, William Pfann developed the method of zone melting which enabled more consistent purification of semiconductors during the doping process.

  • The Introduction of the Metal-oxide Semiconductor Field-effect Transistor

    Mohamed Atalla and Dawson Kahng invented the Metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor which improved efficiency and continues to underlying much of the integrated circuits our world is built on today.

  • The Invention of the Continuous Light Laser

    Donald Herriot built and tested the first continuous-light laser.
  • The Launch of TelStar

    The Launch of TelStar

    John Pierce’s idea of communication satellites became a reality with the launch of TelStar.
  • The Introduction of UNIX

    The Introduction of UNIX

    Ken Thompson and Denis Richie release the Unix Operating System & C Programming Language they developed while at Bell Labs.

  • The Introduction of Optical Fiber to Trasmit Data

    Bell Labs tests some of the first Optical fiber systems in Georgia.

  • From C to C++

    Bjarne Stroustrup started developing the C++ programming language as an extension to C while at Bell Laboratories.

  • AT&T's Refactor of Bell to Lucent Technologies

    AT&T turned Bell Laboratories, along with it’s manufacturing business into Lucent Technologies.

  • The DNA Sequencing Revolution

    Alcatel-Lucent Technologies designed some of the first DNA sequencing machine prototypes.

  • Breaking an Internet Speed Record

    Alcatel-Lucent Technologies announced they had broken the internet speed record with reported speeds of 10 Gigabits per second.

  • Nokia's Accusition of Alcatel-Lucent of the Return of Bell Labs

    Nokia bought the Alcatel-Lucent company for $16.6 billion and renamed it to Nokia Bell Labs.