as a "Schottky (rectifying) contact'". Schottky's contributions in surface science/emission electronics and in semiconductor-device theory now form a significant and pervasive part of the background to these subjects. It could possibly be argued that – perhaps because they are in the area of technical physics – they are not as generally well recognized as they ought to be. Awards He was awarded the Royal Society's Hughes medal in 1936 for his discovery of the Schrot effect (spontaneous current variations in high-vacuum discharge tubes, called by him the "Schrot effect": literally, the "small shot effect") in thermionic emission and his invention of the screen-grid tetrode and a superheterodyne method of receiving wireless signals. In 1964 he received the Werner von Siemens Ring honoring his ground-breaking work on the physical understanding of many phenomena that led to many important technical appliances, among them tube amplifiers and semiconductors. Controversy The invention of superheterodyne is usually attributed to Edwin Armstrong. However, Schottky published an article in the Proceedings of the IEEE that may indicate he had invented and patented something similar in Germany in 1918. The Frenchman Lucien Lévy had filed a claim earlier than either Armstrong or Schottky, and eventually his patent was recognized in the US and Germany. 1939: first p–n junction Legacy The Walter Schottky Institute for semiconductor research and the Walter Schottky Prize are named after him. Books written by Schottky Thermodynamik, Julius Springer, Berlin, Germany, 1929. Physik der Glühelektroden, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, 1928. See also Schottky transistor Schottky junction solar cell Surface-barrier transistor References External links Walter Schottky Biography of Walter H. Schottky Walter Schottky Institut Reinhard W. Serchinger: Walter Schottky – Atomtheoretiker und Elektrotechniker. Sein Leben und Werk bis ins Jahr 1941. Diepholz; Stuttgart; Berlin: GNT-Verlag, 2008. Schottky's math genealogy Semiconductor physicists 1886 births 1976 deaths German electrical engineers 20th-century German physicists Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Werner von Siemens Ring laureates Academic staff of the University of Rostock 20th-century German inventors German expatriates in Switzerland