Carl John[1] Frosch (September 6, 1908 - May 18, 1984)[2] was a Bell Labs researcher who along Lincoln Derrick, accidentally discovered in 1955 that silicon could be protectively coated by silicon dioxide by the right exposure to oxygen when hot. In 1957 they published their discovery of silicon surface passivation by silicon dioxide, using selective SiO2 predeposition and masking to produce semiconductor surface patterns, thus devising the first MOSFET.[3] Such protective coating overcame a problem of surface states found in active silicon circuit elements. The discovery also revealed the potential for the process of silicon etching.
This discovery process was akin to that of penicillin in that an accidental event led to the discovery of the solution to a major problem.