When looking across the discrete components in your electronic armory, it is easy to overlook the humble diode. After all, one can be forgiven for the conclusion that the everyday version of ...

[Hales] has been on a mission for a while to make his own diodes and put them to use and now he’s succeeded with diodes made of sodium bicarbonate and water, aluminum tape and soldered copper.

The four-layer diode was the key to William Shockley's plan to revolutionize AT&T's phone system. It was a great device in theory, but not in practice -- at least not at the time when Shockley ...