Inventor database
Verified
James E. West
Co-inventor of the electret microphone
At a glance
- Inventor
- James E. West
- Life
- b. 1931
- Birthplace
- Farmville, Virginia
- Country
- United States
- Region
- United States
- Era
- 1950–2000
- Fields
- Technology & Computing, Everyday Life
- Evidence
- Verified
- Records
- 1 in this archive
What they did
At Bell Laboratories, West and Gerhard Sessler developed the foil-electret transducer: a microphone using permanently charged polymer film instead of a power-hungry condenser supply.
Historical context
Microphones were bulky, expensive and needed large bias voltages, which kept them out of consumer devices.
The legacy
The overwhelming majority of microphones ever made are electret-based — phones, hearing aids, laptops, baby monitors. West holds more than 250 patents.
The evidence
US Patent 3,118,022 — Electroacoustic transducer
James E. West oral history