 In the 1950s, Mohamed Atalla investigated the surface properties of silicon semiconductors at Bell Labs, where he proposed a new method of semiconductor device fabrication, coating a silicon wafer with an insulating layer of silicon oxide so that electricity could reliably penetrate to the conducting silicon below, overcoming the surface states that prevented electricity from reaching the semiconducting layer.This is known as surface passivation, a method that became critical to the semiconductor industry as it later made possible the mass-production of silicon integrated circuits.He presented his findings in 1957.