death_place death_date birth_place awards nationality field birth_date residence article_title name
stanford , california , u.s. 03 december 1977 vienna , austria duddell medal -lrb- 1960 -rrb- ieee medal of honor -lrb- 1973 medal -rrb- national medal of science -lrb- 1974 -rrb- and prize -lrb- 1955 -rrb- stuart ballantine american electrical engineering 16 may 1909 united states rudolf kompfner
 rudolf kompfner
rudolf kompfner

rudolf kompfner -lrb- may 16 , 1909 -- december 3 , 1977 -rrb- was an austrian-born engineer and physicist , best known as the inventor of the traveling-wave tube -lrb- twt -rrb- .
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 -lrb- due to the rise of anti-semitism -rrb- where he worked as an architect until 1941 .
however , he had a strong interest in physics and electronics , and after being briefly detained by the british as an enemy alien 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 phd in 1951 .
late that year dr. kompfner was recruited to bell labs in the united states by john r. pierce , where they together developed the twt into an important element of the communications age .
he received the ieee medal of honor for his invention , and in 1974 received the national medal of science .
kompfner died on december 3 , 1977 in stanford , california -rsb- .
