Electronics - in its early days synonymous with wireless communication - owes its development to the complex device which we now call the electron tube. Without the tube, we would still be using incoherent gas transmitters and Branly's cohered filled with metal filings. The tubes were originally called "lamps" in French (translated as "valves" in British English, until the relatively recent adoption of the American term "tubes" in the UK too), reflecting the parent company's electrical background. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the discovery of the remarkable properties of electron beams passing through a vacuum led to the emergence of the first cathode ray tubes and diodes capable of rectifying an electrical current. Then, in 1906, American inventor Lee de Forest created the triode by adding a third electrode to the diode, enabling the electronic current to be controlled and amplified, thereby taking the first genuine steps down the road to electronics and signal processing as we know it today.

Areas of Expertise: Specialist Areas (Rebuilt Electron Tubes for High Frequency Induction Welders)