Three element vacuum tubeIn 1907, the three-element vacuum tube was issued a U.S. patent to its inventor, Dr Lee de Forest as a “device for amplifying feeble electric currents - such, for example, as telephone currents” (No. 841,387). The tube was evacuated, with some remaining conducting gas molecules, and it was suggested using for the heated electrode such material as platinum, tantalum or carbon. He had made a public annoucement of his device a few months earlier, on 20 Oct 1906 at a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers held in New York City. On 18 Feb 1908, he received another patent for the grid electrode tube (No. 879,532). |
