Bibliography

P. Görlich. Photocells, Their Manufacture and Properties. Translated from the manuscript by P. P. Feofilov, edited by Prof. V. P. Zhuze. Gostekhizdat, Moscow–Leningrad, 1948, 256 pp., price 9 rubles, print run 7000.

P. Görlich is known for his numerous studies in the field of photocells; he is the author of a sulfur–cesium photoconductivity relay and of a number of German-made photoconductors used as indicators of infrared radiation. The book under review is therefore of understandable interest.

Thanks to the not very common circumstance that the author himself has worked in the field of all types of photocells, both vacuum and gas-filled photocells, as well as valve photocells and photoresistances, occupy an equally rightful place in it. Photomultipliers also receive due attention. In the last chapter photon counters are also briefly considered. Thus, with the exception of photoelectronic devices of television systems, the principal practical field of photoelectric phenomena is covered evenly.

The most extensive chapter, Chapter X, is devoted to describing the characteristics of photocells (apart from the spectral characteristics, considered earlier). The compilation of a survey of characteristics on the principle of comparing them in one place for photocells of all types must be recognized as successful. Chapter IX, “Technical Design of Photocells,” is also read with interest. These two chapters, if one disregards the significant shortcoming discussed below, are, in the character of their exposition, the best suited to the intended purpose of a book published in the series “Physico-Mathematical Library for Engineers.”

Chapters IV–VIII give a brief survey of photoelectric and related phenomena that constitute the physical basis for the creation of one or another type of photocell, and provide information on the technology. This part of the book is to some extent also addressed to specialists. One might have expected that precisely in this part of the book the author, with such rich experience in this field, would not confine himself to a literary summary alone, although including his own publications. These expectations, however, are not justified. The author, unfortunately, does not go beyond already existing literary sources.

The general theoretical introduction in the first three chapters and the theoretical treatment of questions in the subsequent ones are not entirely successful. Often they look detached from the rest of the content. Thus, for example, the theoretical concepts concerning all types of electron emission are presented by the author as applied to metals. From the remaining text, however, the reader learns that almost all practical electron emitters, both thermionic cathodes and photo- and secondary-electron emitters, are semiconductors. In addition, the exposition does not always illuminate the current state of the questions touched upon. This circumstance is closely

BIBLIOGRAPHY

in connection with another major shortcoming of the book under review, to a brief clarification of which we shall turn.

A sufficiently cursory glance at the bibliography appended at the end of the book is enough to become convinced that, on the questions at issue, the book does not reflect the true specific weight of Soviet work. In the field of all the phenomena considered (photoeffect, secondary electron emission, autoelectronic emission, semiconductor physics) Soviet physics in the most recent period occupies a leading position. Therefore, if Soviet works are excluded from consideration, it is impossible to outline the contemporary state of these questions. With such an omission of the present state, connected with the omission of accounts of Soviet physics, we encounter it in the pages of the book both when the discussion concerns theories of electronic emissions, and when experimental investigations are discussed, especially of compound cathodes, and when we enter the field of semiconductor phenomena, despite the fact that the publishing house assumed full responsibility for this aspect of the matter, having stated in its preface: “In translation the manuscript was subjected to a fundamental revision...

“All these changes had as their aim to incorporate the most recent data. Special attention was paid to the correct historical treatment of the question and to the great role played in the field of the photoeffect by the works of Russian and Soviet authors.”

However, to our great regret, the editors did not fulfill this very substantial obligation. Those accidental and not always successful insertions and footnotes which we encounter when reading the book can in no way claim to solve the task of reflecting the true role of the works of Russian and Soviet authors. They rather create a negative background, for, for the nonspecialist who has read the preface quoted above, they create the appearance that the Soviet sources have been exhausted, and these fields of Soviet physics will appear before the reader in an unattractive form. It is characteristic that even in the extensive table of technical types of photocells there was no place for... Soviet types of photocells!

On the other hand, one may encounter cases in which the results of investigations by Soviet authors are set forth, but references to them are not made in the text and they are not included in the bibliographic index, which also does not contribute to a correct illumination of the role of Soviet physics.

In the very table “Historical Data,” given in the appendices, the role of Russian and Soviet science is treated, it seems to us, insufficiently objectively.

First of all, it is surprising that there is no indication of the well-known priority in the development of electron multipliers of L. A. Kubetskii. It would also have been proper to reflect in this table the fundamental investigations of the valve photoeffect in 1888 by the Russian scientist Prof. Ul'ianin. Important stages in this field were also such works of domestic physicists as the investigation of the elementary act of the photoeffect (A. F. Ioffe), the discovery of photoconductivity in crystals of X-rayed rock salt (A. F. Ioffe), and others, which found no reflection in the summary. And, of course, if one speaks of selenium photoresistance at all in table three, then the selenium-silver valve photocell (D. S. Geikhman and M. Soroka), alongside the thallofide one, undoubtedly should have been mentioned.

In the very list of monographic literature such Soviet monographs have been omitted as P. I. Lukirskii’s On the Photoeffect, A. F. Ioffe’s Electronic Semiconductors, P. S. Tartakovskii’s The Internal Photoeffect in Dielectrics, and others.

We shall not dwell on unprincipled issues of proofreading and editorial oversights.

The general conclusion which we must draw on the basis of what has been said above is as follows. If individual passages of the book may

represent interest for a limited circle of specialists, it is in no way possible to recommend it to broad engineering-technical and other circles of readers whose acquaintance with the field of photoelectric phenomena would be based on reading this book.

P. Borzyak