Vacuum tube

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This article is about the electronic device. For experiments in an evacuated pipe,
see free fall. For the transport system, see Pneumatic tube.

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Later thermionic vacuum tubes, mostly miniature style, some with top cap anode
connections for higher voltages
In electronics, a vacuum tube, an electron tube,[1][2][3] or valve (British usage)
or, colloquially, a tube (North America),[4] is a device that controls electric
current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential
difference has been applied.

The type known as a thermionic tube or thermionic valve uses the phenomenon of
thermionic emission of electrons from a heated cathode and is used for a number of
fundamental electronic functions such as signal amplification and current
rectification.

Non-thermionic types, such as a vacuum phototube however, achieve electron emission

through the photoelectric effect, and are used for such as the detection of light
levels. In both types, the electrons are accelerated from the cathode to the anode
by the electric field in the tube.

The simplest vacuum tube, the diode invented in 1904 by John Ambrose Fleming,
contains only a heated electron-emitting cathode and an anode. Current can only
flow in one direction through the device�from the cathode to the anode. Adding one
or more control grids within the tube allows the current between the cathode and
anode to be controlled by the voltage on the grid or grids.[5] These devices became
a key component of electronic circuits for the first half of the twentieth century.
They were crucial to the development of radio, television, radar, sound recording
and reproduction, long distance telephone networks, and analogue and early digital
computers. Although some applications had used earlier technologies such as the
spark gap transmitter for radio or mechanical computers for computing, it was the
invention of the thermionic vacuum tube that made these technologies widespread and
practical, and created the discipline of electronics.[6]

In the 1940s the invention of semiconductor devices made it possible to produce

solid-state devices, which are smaller, more efficient, reliable and durable, and
cheaper than thermionic tubes. From the mid-1960s, thermionic tubes were then being
replaced with the transistor. However, the cathode-ray tube (CRT) remained the
basis for television monitors and oscilloscopes until the early 21st century.
Thermionic tubes still have some applications, such as the magnetron used in
microwave ovens, certain high-frequency amplifiers, and amplifiers that audio
enthusiasts prefer for their tube sound.

Not all electronic circuit valves/electron tubes are vacuum tubes. Gas-filled tubes
are similar devices, but containing a gas, typically at low pressure, which exploit
phenomena related to electric discharge in gases, usually without a heater.