Scarcely Reported Phenomena and Devices in Electronics and Photonics in the Pre-Transistor Era

Several papers list and discuss electronic and optoelectronic phenomena and devices and pioneers in these areas before the invention of transistors and lasers. A few important omissions in these papers, in particular, the work of Lilienfeld and Losev, are now available to some extent. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was the first to demonstrate wireless transmission with his indigenous set up. His patent for galena detector and a number of microwave components, developed first by him, are well recognized. However, his pioneering research in a few other areas leading to the development of electronics and photonics are scarcely reported. In this paper, the main focus is on Bose’s less recognized work. However, a brief mention of the work by Lilienfeld, Losev and a few others is also made to give due credit to their efforts for laying the foundation of electronics and photonics. Bose’s few experiments, somewhat less known to larger community, but recognized by experts in the corresponding fields as the first, will be listed and described. These include his galena detector as the first semiconductor device as well as the first infrared (IR) detector, and the first idea to convert sunlight into electrical energy; his experiment on frustrated total internal reflection, later termed as light tunneling leading to devices as well as interesting physical phenomena still under debate today; his jute polarizer as first chiral metamaterial; hysteresis observed by him in the I-V curve of coherer as first signature of memristor action; and a polarizer having alternate layers of paper and tin foil as the first structures for both the photonic band gap and the superlattice. Relevance of his work to phenomena and devices in current electronics and photonics is pointed out. Comments by experts in the areas are also included.