Rudolf Kompfner

Rudolf Kompfner (May 16, 1909 – December 3, 1977) was an Austrian-born inventor, physicist and architect, best known as the inventor of the traveling-wave tube (TWT).

Rudolf Kompfner
Born(1909-05-16)May 16, 1909
Vienna, Austria
DiedDecember 3, 1977(1977-12-03) (aged 68)
Stanford, California, United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma materOxford University, D.Phil.
AwardsDuddell Medal and Prize (1955)
Stuart Ballantine Medal (1960)
IEEE Medal of Honor(1973)
National Medal of Science (1974)
Scientific career
FieldsElectrical engineering

Life

Kompfner was born in Vienna to Jewish parents.[1] He was originally trained as an architect and after receiving his university degree in 1933 he moved to England (due to the rise of anti-Semitism), where he worked as an architect until 1941. He had a strong interest in physics and electronics, and after being briefly detained by the British at the start of World War II he was recruited to work in a secret microwave vacuum tube research program at the University of Birmingham. While there, Kompfner invented the TWT in 1943. After the war he became a British citizen, continued working for the Admiralty as a scientist, and also studied physics at the University of Oxford, receiving his D.Phil. in 1951.[2]

In 1965, he received an honorary doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology.[3]

Patents

1957

  • Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier. (Issued 8/27/57.)
  • Traveling Wave Tube. (Issued 10/29/57.)
  • Electron Beam System. (Issued 11/5/57.)

1958

  • Traveling Wave Tube. (Issued 5/13/58.)
  • Electron Beam System. (Issued 10/21/58.)
  • Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission. (Issued 11/11/58.)

1959

  • Traveling Wave Tube. (Issued 1/6/59.)
  • Direct View Storage Tube. (Issued 3/24/59.)
  • Backward Wave Tube. (Issued 6/16/59.)
  • Traveling Wave Tube. (Issued 7/14/59.)
  • Apparatus Utilizing Slalom Focusing. (Issued 8/11/59.)
  • Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission Device. (Issued 11/3/59.)
  • Backward Wave Amplifier. (Issued 12/8/59.)

1960

  • Non-reciprocal Elements in Microwave Tubes. (Issued 1/26/60.)
  • Coaxial Couplers. (Issued 2/16/60.)
  • Pulse Coincidence Detecting Tube. (Issued 4/19/60.)
  • Electron Gun for Slalom Focusing Systems. (Issued 5/31/60.)
  • High Efficiency Velocity Modulation Devices. (Issued 8/16/60.)
  • Traveling Wave Tube. (Issued 10/4/60.)

1961

  • Low Noise Amplifier. (Issued 2/14/61.)
  • High Frequency Amplifier. (Issued 2/21/61.)
  • Backward Wave Tube. (Issued 5/23/61.)
  • Elastic Wave Parametric Amplifier. (Issued 12/5/61.)

1962

  • Parallel High Frequency Amplifier Circuits. (Issued 2/15/62.)
  • Scanning Horn-Reflector Antenna. (Issued 2/13/62.)
  • Microwave Filter. (Issued 6/26/62.)
  • Broadband Cyclotron Wave Parametric Amplifier. (Issued 8/28/62.)
  • High Frequency Generator. (Issued 12/4/62.)

1964

  • Traveling Wave Light Modulator. (Issued 5/12/64.)
  • Artificial Scattering Elements for Use as Reflectors in Space Communication Systems. (Issued 9/29/64.)
  • Detector for Optical Communication System. (Issued 10/27/64.)

1965

  • Beam Collector with Auxiliary Collector for Repelled or Secondarily-Emitted Electrons. (Issued 6 /8/65.)
  • Antenna System. (Issued 7/20/65.)
  • Sinusoidal-Shaped Lens for Light Wave Communication. (Issued 12/21/65.)
  • Transmission of Light Waves. (Issued 12/21/65.)

1966

  • Optical Maser Amplifier. (Issued 5/24/66.)
  • Antenna System. (Issued 9/13/66.)
  • Triple Element S-Lens Focusing System. (Issued 11/15/66.)

1967

  • Spherical Reflector Elastic Wave Delay Device with Planar Transducers. (Issued 5/2/67.)

1969

  • Intracavity Image Converter. (Issued 7/8/69.)

1970

  • Receiving Antenna Apparatus Compensated for Antenna Surface Irregularities. (Issued 1/13/70.)
  • Anti-Doppler Shift Antenna for Mobile Radio. (Issued 3/24/70.)
  • Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator. (Issued 3/31/70.)
  • Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator. (Issued 3/31/70.)
  • Optical Waveguide. (Issued 4/14/70.)
  • Time Division Multiplex Optical Transmission System. (Issued 4/l4/70.)
  • Digital Light Deflecting Systems. (Issued 6/2/70.)
  • Method and Apparatus for Obtaining 3-Dimensional Images from Recorded Standing Patterns. (Issued 7/14/70.)
  • Optical Heterodyne Receiver with Pulse Widening or Stretching. (Issued 9/22/70.)
  • Light Communication System with Improved Signal- to-Noise Ratio. (Issued 10/6/70.)

1977

  • Method of and Apparatus for Acoustic Imaging. (Issued 3/15/77.)

References
  1. Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  2. IEEE Global History Network (2011). "Rudolf Kompfner". IEEE History Center. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
  3. "TU Wien: Akademische Würdenträger". 21 February 2016. Archived from the original on 21 February 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
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