The Role of Industry Based Research in Advancing Thermionics Science

Abstract

The thermionics branch in science of physics and electronics was born and matured in the first four decades of the 20th century. Research in industries, aimed at production of the thermionic vacuum tubes in the US, Britain, Soviet Union, Germany and other countries, had played the major part in forming the theoretical and empirical sides. The article reviews key contributions made by industrial laboratories. They demonstrate the role of research within the industry in advancing science, in the days when academy was nominally associated with science and the industry, with the more technical side. It is plausible to assume that without research in the industry creating interests for academy scientists in thermionics, and luring them to industrial labs, the scientific advance in the field would have been much slower.