Rudolf Kompfner

Rudolf Kompfner (born May 16, 1909 in Vienna , † December 3, 1977 in Stanford , California ; actually Rudolf Kömpfner ) was an engineer and physicist . He is known as the inventor of the traveling wave tube (TWT).

Life

Kompfner was born on May 16, 1909 to Jewish parents. After completing his architecture studies at the Technical University of Vienna in 1933 , he went to England (because of the emerging anti-Semitism ) , where he worked as an architect until 1941. He always had a great interest in physics and electronics . After a brief internment as an enemy alien at the beginning of World War II, he got a job at a secret research project on microwave - vacuum tubes at the University of Birmingham . In the course of this work Kompfner invented the traveling wave tube in 1943. After the end of the war he became a British citizen, continued working as a scientist for the British Admiralty and also studied physics at Oxford University , where he received a Ph.D. received.

At the end of this year, Kompfner was hired by John R. Pierce for Bell Labs in the USA , where he worked with them to further develop the traveling wave tube as an important element of the communication age. He received the IEEE Medal of Honor for his invention . In 1974 he received the National Medal of Science . He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering , among others .

In 1965 he received an honorary doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology .

Kompfner died on December 3, 1977 in Stanford , California .

The Rudolf Kompfner Medal of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University of Vienna was named after him.

literature

• FNH Robinson: Kompfner, Rudolf (1909–1977). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
• Rudolf Kompfner: The Invention of the Traveling-Wave Tube. San Francisco Press, San Francisco 1964.

Web links

• IEEE History Center biography ( Memento from April 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), as of: April 9, 2008, in the Internet Archive at archive.org, viewed July 17, 2011 (English)
• List of recipients of the IEEE medal (1973 p. 3) (PDF, English; 117 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ TU Wien: Honorary doctorates ( memento of the original from February 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 26, 2015.