Other Vacuum Tube Devices
Many devices were built during the 1920–1960 period using vacuum-tube techniques including ones which integrated several tube functions within one envelope such as the Loewe 3NF. Most of these devices have been superseded by semiconductors. However some vacuum tube electronic devices are still in common use including the magnetron, klystron, photomultiplier, x-ray tube, traveling-wave tube and cathode ray tube. The magnetron is the type of tube used in all microwave ovens. In spite of the advancing state of the art in power semiconductor technology, the vacuum tube still has reliability and cost advantages for high-frequency RF power generation.
Some tubes, such as magnetrons, traveling-wave tubes, carcinotrons, and klystrons, combine magnetic and electrostatic effects. These are efficient (usually narrow-band) RF generators and still find use in radar, microwave ovens and industrial heating. Traveling-wave tubes (TWTs) are very good amplifiers and are even used in some communications satellites. High-powered klystron amplifier tubes can provide hundreds of kilowatts in the UHF range.
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