Rudolf Kompfner


Rudolf Kompfner was an Austrian-born inventor, physicist and architect, best known as the inventor of the traveling-wave tube.

Life

Kompfner was born in Vienna to Jewish parents. He was originally trained as an architect and after receiving his university degree in 1933 he moved to England, 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.
In 1965, he received an honorary doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology.

Patents

1957

  • Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier
  • Traveling Wave Tube
  • Electron Beam System

    1958

  • Traveling Wave Tube
  • Electron Beam System
  • Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission

    1959

  • Traveling Wave Tube
  • Direct View Storage Tube
  • Backward Wave Tube
  • Traveling Wave Tube
  • Apparatus Utilizing Slalom Focusing
  • Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission Device
  • Backward Wave Amplifier

    1960

  • Non-reciprocal Elements in Microwave Tubes
  • Coaxial Couplers
  • Pulse Coincidence Detecting Tube
  • Electron Gun for Slalom Focusing Systems
  • High Efficiency Velocity Modulation Devices
  • Traveling Wave Tube

    1961

  • Low Noise Amplifier
  • High Frequency Amplifier
  • Backward Wave Tube
  • Elastic Wave Parametric Amplifier

    1962

  • Parallel High Frequency Amplifier Circuits
  • Scanning Horn-Reflector Antenna
  • Microwave Filter
  • Broadband Cyclotron Wave Parametric Amplifier
  • High Frequency Generator

    1964

  • Traveling Wave Light Modulator
  • Artificial Scattering Elements for Use as Reflectors in Space Communication Systems
  • Detector for Optical Communication System

    1965

  • Beam Collector with Auxiliary Collector for Repelled or Secondarily-Emitted Electrons.
  • Antenna System
  • Sinusoidal-Shaped Lens for Light Wave Communication
  • Transmission of Light Waves

    1966

  • Optical Maser Amplifier
  • Antenna System
  • Triple Element S-Lens Focusing System

    1967

  • Spherical Reflector Elastic Wave Delay Device with Planar Transducers

    1969

  • Intracavity Image Converter

    1970

  • Receiving Antenna Apparatus Compensated for Antenna Surface Irregularities
  • Anti-Doppler Shift Antenna for Mobile Radio
  • Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator
  • Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator
  • Optical Waveguide
  • Time Division Multiplex Optical Transmission System
  • Digital Light Deflecting Systems
  • Method and Apparatus for Obtaining 3-Dimensional Images from Recorded Standing Patterns
  • Optical Heterodyne Receiver with Pulse Widening or Stretching
  • Light Communication System with Improved Signal-to-Noise Ratio

    1977

  • Method of and Apparatus for Acoustic Imaging