For one, it acted like a rectifier, able to turn alternating ... two resistors, and a diode -- all in a single crystal. Unfortunately, they were so tricky to make that Shockley's company, Shockley ...

The crystal in a crystal radio was a rectifier (most often, these days, a germanium diode, which is, a type of crystal). The crystal in a crystal earpiece is a piezoelectric sound transducer.

Rather than the traditional galena crystal and cat’s whisker detector, a pair of1N34A germanium diodes are used as rectifiers — one for demodulating the audio signal, and the other to drive a ...