AVS 51st International Symposium
    Vacuum Technology Tuesday Sessions
       Session VT-TuA

Invited Paper VT-TuA3
Vacuum and the Electron Tube Industry

Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 2:00 pm, Room 303D

Session: Special Session at the 51st International AVS Symposium: "Fleming Centenary Session: The Birth and Evolution of Electronics"
Presenter: P. Redhead, National Research Council, Canada
Correspondent: Click to Email
The electron tube industry started with the patenting of the thermionic diode by John Ambrose Fleming in 1904. In the beginning the vacuum technology used by the infant tube industry was copied from the existing technology of the incandescent lamp industry. The growing demands for electron tubes for military and naval communications in the first world war led to major improvements in pumps and processing methods. By the 1920s the tube industry was developing mass production methods of processing to satisfy the demands for receiving tubes by the burgeoning radio industry. Further expansion of the tube industry in the 30s and 40s led to improvements in automatic equipment for processing vacuum tubes leading to the massive production rates of electron tubes in the second world war. The demands of radar during the war resulted in the development of techniques for large-scale production of microwave tubes and CRTs, the latter technology being put to good use later in TV picture tube production. The requirements of the electron tube industry dominated the vacuum industry for about 30 years until the introduction of the transistor. The developments in vacuum technology in the electron tube industry will be reviewed.