Fred Abse wrote:

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 12:34:17 +0100, A E wrote:

Schottky barrier diodes like this are used in mixers all the time
because of their speed (no charge storage), but from what I understand,
weren't used back then because, well, they didn't exist.

They've existed since the 1950s.

Yes, surface barrier transistors and such used the Schottky effect in those
times, but as a collector of some 60s vintage stuff, Schottky diodes are absent
in these units. Every other kind of diode, Schockley, tunnel, snap, varactor,
back, GaAs, Ge, etc... but not a single Schottky diode. In my 1L20 the 1N5711
performs the same as the 1N416D. So why did they use a complicated to build unit
like the 416D if they had had 1N5711-style devices back then? I suppose they
must have been used in the 60s because analog samplers with Schottky diodes are
certainly in the literature, so maybe they were too new, expensive?
Really, I'd like to know.

The principle was postulated in 1938.

But as a commercial product, when did Schottky diodes arrive on the market?