Gerald L. Pearson (March 31, 1905 – October 25, 1987) was an American physicist whose work on silicon rectifiers at Bell Labs led to the invention of the solar cell.
[1] After World War II he was part of William Shockley's group, where his experimental results were essential in developing models of semiconductor behaviour.
In 1946, acting on a suggestion by Shockley he put a voltage on a droplet of glycol borate (gu) placed across a P-N junction producing the first evidence of power amplification in the search for the transistor.
He took early retirement from Bell in 1960 to take up the position of professor of electrical engineering at Stanford setting up a research program on compound semiconductors.
[2] In 1964, Pearson received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.