Science and Public Policy: National Security 105 



absorb new basic scientific results rapidly. Through the flexible 

 and versatile contract systems and inhouse technical support, 

 the Department of Defense and its service departments were 

 able to mobilize responsible new developmental and engineer- 

 ing talents, without disrupting or even seriously delaying the 

 rest of the complex weapons system and its awesome warhead. 



Another cardinal area in which this recog- 

 The Nucleus, nition of the role of scientific specialty, 



the Crystal, without the commitment of the scientists 



and the Weapon subjectively to a particular systems mission, 



has been expertly cultivated is in the whole 

 field of nuclear weapons and energy sources. Indeed the re- 

 search and development programs of the Atomic Energy Com- 

 mission themselves reflect a large element of this wisdom. But 

 it is also interesting to look for the particular cases in fields 

 where contributions of the specialist might have been little 

 expected or have appeared to be of minor systems significance. 

 One of these is provided in the influence of solid state science 

 and technology in detectors and counters for nuclear particles. 

 It was found in connection with the research on semiconduc- 

 tors and transistors that appropriately treated single crystals of 

 germanium, silicon and certain other structures were particu- 

 larly sensitive and efficient counters of elementary particles, 

 through the hole-electron pair generation which occurred by 

 interaction of the impacting particle with the crystal lattice 

 (Fig. 5). In recent years, many applications of this fundamental 

 quality have been made to interesting scientific problems in 

 nuclear physics. For instance, following the work of Brown, 

 Burton and their co-workers at the Murray Hill Laboratories 

 on development of these crystals, Walter Gibson, an able former 

 student of Professor Glenn Seaborg, used them as particle 

 counters to derive the total distribution of atom masses yielded 

 by the neutron-induced fission of uranium. From coincidence 

 counter experiments covering specific regions of total kinetic 

 energy, new and unsuspected features of energy release were 

 indicated by these studies. Thus the laborious classical radio- 



