[1] When William Shockley's group at Bell Labs invented the transistor in 1947, Teal realized that substantial improvements in the device would result if it was fabricated using a single crystal, rather than the polycrystalline material then being used, and created the grown-junction single-crystal technique.

[3] In 1952 Dallas-based Texas Instruments had purchased a license to produce germanium transistors from Western Electric, the manufacturing arm of AT&T and placed an advertisement in the New York Times for a director of research.

Teal started at TI as an Assistant Vice President on 1 January 1953, bringing with him all his expertise in growing semiconductor crystals.

[1] Haggerty had hired him to establish a team of scientists and engineers to keep TI at the leading edge of the new and rapidly expanding semiconductor industry.

On 10 May 1954 at the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) National Conference on Airborne Electronics, in Dayton, Ohio, Teal revealed this achievement to the world, when he announced: "Contrary to what my colleagues have told you about the bleak prospects for silicon transistors, I happen to have a few of them here in my pocket.

In 1965, Teal, taking a leave of absence from Texas Instruments, took a role at the National Bureau of Standards (now named National Institute of Standards and Technology) to become the first Director of the Institute for Materials Research in Washington, D.C. After his two-year term, he returned to Texas Instruments and remained there until he retired in 1972.