James Edward Maceo West
born February 10, 1931 –
The work of James Edward Maceo West transformed the way people around the world hear and transmit sound. In 1962, West, then a research scientist at Bell Laboratories, developed the foil electret microphone in partnership with his colleague Dr. Gerhard M. Sessler.
Until that time, most microphones, which transform sound into an electrical signal, needed a cumbersome and expensive battery in order to operate.
By contrast, West and Sessler used an electret, in their case Teflon, to drive the sound conversion. Electrets are materials that can be permanently charged or polarized following exposure to an electric field.
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