{{Short description|Austrian-born inventor, physicist and architect}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Rudolf Kompfner | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1909|05|16}} | birth_place = Vienna, Austria | death_date = {{death date and age|1977|12|03|1909|05|16}} | death_place = Stanford, California, United States | field = Electrical engineering | work_institution = | alma_mater = Oxford University, D.Phil. | doctoral_advisor = | awards = Duddell Medal and Prize <small>(1955)</small><br />Stuart Ballantine Medal {{small|(1960)}}<br />IEEE Medal of Honor{{small|(1973)}}<br />National Medal of Science {{small|(1974)}} }}
'''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).
== Life ==
Kompfner was born in Vienna to Jewish parents.<ref>Concise Dictionary of National Biography</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Rudolf_Kompfner |title=Rudolf Kompfner |author=IEEE Global History Network |year=2011 |publisher=IEEE History Center |access-date=14 July 2011}}</ref>
In 1965, he received an honorary doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology.<ref>{{cite web |title=TU Wien: Akademische Würdenträger |url=http://www.tuwien.ac.at/wir_ueber_uns/zahlen_und_fakten/akademische_wuerdentraeger_innen/ |access-date=13 December 2020 |date=21 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160221150413/http://www.tuwien.ac.at/wir_ueber_uns/zahlen_und_fakten/akademische_wuerdentraeger_innen/ |archive-date=2016-02-21 }}</ref>
== Patents ==
===1957=== * Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier (issued August 27, 1957) * Traveling Wave Tube (issued October 29, 1957) * Electron Beam System (issued November 5, 1957)
===1958=== * Traveling Wave Tube (issued May 13, 1958) * Electron Beam System (issued October 21, 1958) * Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission (issued November 11, 1958)
===1959=== * Traveling Wave Tube (issued January 6, 1959) * Direct View Storage Tube (issued March 24, 1959) * Backward Wave Tube (issued June 16, 1959) * Traveling Wave Tube (issued July 14, 1959) * Apparatus Utilizing Slalom Focusing (issued August 11, 1959) * Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission Device (issued November 3, 1959) * Backward Wave Amplifier (issued December 8, 1959)
===1960=== * Non-reciprocal Elements in Microwave Tubes (issued January 26, 1960) * Coaxial Couplers (issued February 16, 1960) * Pulse Coincidence Detecting Tube (issued April 19, 1960) * Electron Gun for Slalom Focusing Systems (issued May 31, 1960) * High Efficiency Velocity Modulation Devices (issued August 16, 1960) * Traveling Wave Tube (issued October 4, 1960)
===1961=== * Low Noise Amplifier (issued February 14, 1961) * High Frequency Amplifier (issued February 21, 1961) * Backward Wave Tube (issued May 23, 1961) * Elastic Wave Parametric Amplifier (issued December 5, 1961)
===1962=== * Parallel High Frequency Amplifier Circuits (issued February 15, 1962) * Scanning Horn-Reflector Antenna (issued February 13, 1962) * Microwave Filter (issued June 26, 1962) * Broadband Cyclotron Wave Parametric Amplifier (issued August 28, 1962) * High Frequency Generator (issued December 4, 1962)
===1964=== * Traveling Wave Light Modulator (issued May 12, 1964) * Artificial Scattering Elements for Use as Reflectors in Space Communication Systems (issued September 29, 1964) * Detector for Optical Communication System (issued October 27, 1964)
===1965=== * Beam Collector with Auxiliary Collector for Repelled or Secondarily-Emitted Electrons. (Issued 6 /8, 1965) * Antenna System (issued July 20, 1965) * Sinusoidal-Shaped Lens for Light Wave Communication (issued December 21, 1965) * Transmission of Light Waves (issued December 21, 1965)
===1966=== * Optical Maser Amplifier (issued May 24, 1966) * Antenna System (issued September 13, 1966) * Triple Element S-Lens Focusing System (issued November 15, 1966)
===1967=== * Spherical Reflector Elastic Wave Delay Device with Planar Transducers (issued May 2, 1967)
===1969=== * Intracavity Image Converter (issued July 8, 1969)
===1970=== * Receiving Antenna Apparatus Compensated for Antenna Surface Irregularities (issued January 13, 1970) * Anti-Doppler Shift Antenna for Mobile Radio (issued March 24, 1970) * Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator (issued March 31, 1970) * Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator (issued March 31, 1970) * Optical Waveguide (issued April 14, 1970) * Time Division Multiplex Optical Transmission System (issued April 14, 1970) * Digital Light Deflecting Systems (issued June 2, 1970) * Method and Apparatus for Obtaining 3-Dimensional Images from Recorded Standing Patterns (issued July 14, 1970) * Optical Heterodyne Receiver with Pulse Widening or Stretching (issued September 22, 1970) * Light Communication System with Improved Signal-to-Noise Ratio (issued October 6, 1970)
===1977=== * Method of and Apparatus for Acoustic Imaging (issued March 15, 1977)
==References== {{reflist}} * Oxford Dictionary of National Biography * {{cite book | last = Kompfner | first = Rudolf | date = November 1964 | title = The Invention of the Traveling-Wave Tube | publisher = San Francisco Press | pages = 30 | isbn = 978-0911302011 }}
==External links== * {{cite web|url= http://www.ieee.org/documents/moh_rl.pdf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100619221831/http://ieee.org/documents/moh_rl.pdf |url-status= dead |archive-date= 19 June 2010 |title=IEEE Medal Of Honor Recipients, 1973 |website=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) }}, p. 4 *[http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/kompfner-rudolph.pdf National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir]
{{IEEE Medal of Honor Laureates 1951–1975}} {{Winners of the National Medal of Science|engineering}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kompfner, Rudolf}} Category:1909 births Category:1977 deaths Category:Austrian Jews Category:British Jews Category:Austrian electrical engineers Category:National Medal of Science laureates Category:IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Category:Jewish American scientists Category:Scientists at Bell Labs Category:Jews who immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism Category:British electrical engineers Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford Category:Academics of the University of Birmingham Category:20th-century American engineers Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:20th-century American Jews Category:20th-century British physicists Category:Radiophysicists Category:American microwave engineers