History of electricity
82 inventions by year: what each evolved from and what it led to.
How the inventions are connected
- Voltaic pile → Lead–acid battery → Lithium-ion battery → Solid-state battery
- Voltaic pile → Dry cell → Alkaline battery
- Vacuum tube → Diode → Triode
| Year | Invention | What it is | Evolved from | Led to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1745 | Capacitor Ewald Georg von Kleist, Питер ван Мушенбрук | Stores electric charge. | Leyden jar | |
| 1745 | Leyden jar Ewald Georg von Kleist | The first capacitor. | Capacitor | |
| 1800 | Voltaic pile | The first chemical source of direct current. | Lead–acid battery, Dry cell, Electrolysis | |
| 1802 | Arc lamp | Light from an electric arc between carbons (Petrov, Davy, c. 1802); the “Yablochkov candle” (1876) made it street lighting. | ||
| 1820 | Copper wire | A conductor made of copper. | ||
| 1824 | Electromagnet William Sturgeon | A core with a winding that is magnetized by current (Sturgeon). | ||
| 1831 | Inductor Michael Faraday | A wire wound into a coil; stores energy in a magnetic field. | ||
| 1834 | Electric motor | A machine that turns electrical energy into rotation. Moritz von Jacobi built a practical motor. | ||
| 1835 | Relay | A switch operated by an electromagnet (Henry). | Programmable logic controller | |
| 1840 | Insulator | A non-conducting part that holds a wire. | ||
| 1841 | Potentiometer Johann Christian Poggendorff | A variable resistor with a sliding contact. | ||
| 1843 | Rheostat Johann Christian Poggendorff | A resistor with a slider: move the slider and the resistance and current in the circuit change. | ||
| 1850 | Resistor | A component with a set resistance. | ||
| 1859 | Lead–acid battery | The first rechargeable battery (Gaston Planté). | Voltaic pile | Lithium-ion battery |
| 1866 | Electric generator | A machine that turns rotation into electric current. | ||
| 1873 | Photoresistor | A light-sensitive resistor (selenium, Smith). | ||
| 1874 | Rectifier | Converts alternating current into direct current. | ||
| 1879 | Incandescent light bulb Thomas Edison, Joseph Swan | Light from a filament heated by current. Lodygin, Swan and Edison worked on it. | Oil lamp, Gas lamp | LED lamp |
| 1879 | Hall sensor | Measures a magnetic field using the Hall effect; the compass in a smartphone. | ||
| 1882 | Ammeter | Measures electric current; it is connected in series. | Galvanometer | Multimeter |
| 1882 | Voltmeter | Measures the voltage between two points of a circuit; it is connected in parallel. | Galvanometer | Multimeter |
| 1885 | Transformer Michael Faraday | Converts the voltage of alternating current (Yablochkov, Gaulard–Gibbs, ZBD). | ||
| 1886 | Dry cell | A battery with a paste electrolyte (Gassner). | Voltaic pile | Alkaline battery |
| 1888 | Induction motor Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky | A motor with a rotating magnetic field (Tesla, Dolivo-Dobrovolsky). | ||
| 1889 | Electricity meter | A device for metering electricity. | Smart meter | |
| 1889 | Three-phase system Nikola Tesla, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky | A system of three currents shifted in phase (Dolivo-Dobrovolsky). | ||
| 1890 | Hub motor | An electric motor built into a wheel hub. | ||
| 1890 | Fuse | A conductor that burns out when the current is too high. | ||
| 1891 | Tesla coil Nikola Tesla | A resonant high-voltage transformer. | ||
| 1896 | Electrolytic capacitor Karol Pollak | A high-capacitance capacitor with an oxide layer (Pollak). | ||
| 1897 | Cathode-ray tube | A picture tube in which an electron beam draws the image (Braun). | Electron | |
| 1904 | Vacuum tube | A device that controls a flow of electrons in a vacuum; the basis of the first computers. | Transistor, Diode | |
| 1904 | Diode Jagadish Chandra Bose | Lets current pass in one direction. | Vacuum tube | Triode, Thyristor |
| 1906 | Amplifier | Increases the power of a signal. | ||
| 1906 | Triode Lee de Forest, Robert von Lieben | A tube with an amplifying grid (Lee de Forest). | Diode | |
| 1910 | Neon sign | A gas-discharge tube (Claude). | ||
| 1912 | Oscillator | A circuit that produces a periodic signal. | ||
| 1920 | Multimeter | Measures voltage, current and resistance. | Galvanometer, Voltmeter, Ammeter | |
| 1921 | Soldering iron | An electric tool for soldering (Ersa). | ||
| 1924 | Circuit breaker | Cuts off the circuit when it is overloaded. | ||
| 1925 | Inverter | Converts direct current into alternating current. | ||
| 1927 | Quartz clock | A clock paced by the vibrations of a quartz crystal. | Pendulum clock, Mechanical clock | Atomic clock |
| 1930 | Thermistor Michael Faraday | A resistor whose resistance depends on temperature. | ||
| 1930 | Varistor | A resistor that protects against voltage surges. | ||
| 1936 | Printed circuit board | A board with conductors laid on an insulator (Eisler). | ||
| 1938 | Fluorescent lamp | A gas-discharge lamp with a phosphor. | ||
| 1940 | Servomotor | A motor with position feedback. | ||
| 1940 | Magnetron University of Birmingham | A microwave generator; the key part of radars and microwave ovens. | ||
| 1940 | Ceramic capacitor | A capacitor with a ceramic dielectric. | ||
| 1941 | Operational amplifier | A general-purpose differential amplifier. | ||
| 1947 | Transistor | A semiconductor device for amplifying and switching signals. | Vacuum tube | |
| 1947 | Point-contact transistor | Bardeen and Brattain’s first transistor. | Bipolar transistor | |
| 1948 | Bipolar transistor | A transistor with two p–n junctions (Shockley). | Point-contact transistor | |
| 1950 | Photodiode | A diode that turns light into current. | ||
| 1950 | Analog-to-digital converter | Turns an analogue signal into numbers. | ||
| 1950 | Heat sink | A metal heat spreader with fins. | ||
| 1950 | Zener diode | A diode for stabilizing voltage (the Zener effect). | ||
| 1956 | Thyristor | A controllable high-power semiconductor switch. | Diode | |
| 1957 | Supercapacitor | A capacitor of huge capacitance for storing energy quickly. | ||
| 1959 | MOSFET Martin “John” M. Atalla, Dawon Kahng | A field-effect transistor with an insulated gate (Atalla, Kahng). | ||
| 1959 | Alkaline battery | A zinc–manganese cell with an alkaline electrolyte (Urry). | Dry cell | |
| 1959 | Halogen lamp | An incandescent lamp with a halogen cycle. | ||
| 1960 | Power supply | Converts mains voltage for electronics. | ||
| 1960 | Uninterruptible power supply | Battery power when the mains fails. | ||
| 1960 | Surface-mount technology | Mounting components on the surface of the board. | ||
| 1962 | LED H. J. Round, Oleg Losev | A semiconductor diode that emits light (Holonyak; Losev observed it in the 1920s). | ||
| 1962 | Laser diode | A semiconductor laser. | ||
| 1970 | Switched-mode power supply | A compact power supply based on high-frequency conversion. | ||
| 1971 | Breadboard | A board for building circuits without soldering. | ||
| 1980 | Reflow soldering | Soldering with solder paste in an oven. | ||
| 1982 | IGBT | A power transistor for inverters and electric drives. | ||
| 1989 | Nickel–metal hydride battery | A rechargeable cell; used in the first hybrids. | ||
| 1990 | Vibration motor | A tiny electric motor with an eccentric weight that vibrates as it spins. | ||
| 1991 | Lithium-ion battery | A rechargeable battery in which lithium ions move between the electrodes. | Lead–acid battery | Solid-state battery |
| 1993 | Blue LED H. J. Round, Oleg Losev | A gallium nitride LED (Nakamura) that opened the way to white light. | ||
| 2001 | Power bank | A portable battery for charging gadgets. | ||
| 2008 | Wireless charging | Charging by induction (the Qi standard). | ||
| 2020 | Solid-state battery | A lithium battery with a solid electrolyte (in development). | Lithium-ion battery | |
| Electrolyte | The medium through which ions move between the electrodes. | |||
| Anode (graphite) | The electrode that lithium ions enter during charging. | |||
| Cathode (lithium metal oxide) | The electrode that supplies lithium ions, e.g. LiCoO₂. | |||
| Separator | A porous film that keeps the electrodes from shorting. |