Microwave Hall of Fame
Part II

In 1932, Sir Robert A. Watson-Watt came up the idea of “RDF”, Radio Direction Finding. He wrote a paper (with A.F. Wilkins) describing this new technique of Radio Detection and Ranging giving it the code name of "radar” in 1935. It was proved that the theory would work, but with a range of only eight miles using the state-of-the-art devices of the day. By the autumn of 1938 radar systems were in place along the south coast of Britain. Watson-Watt became scientific advisor to the British Air Ministry in 1940 and in 1941 went to the United States to set up radar systems there. He lived from 1892 to 1973.

In 1959 Watson-Watt published his autobiography, entitled "The Pulse of Radar". This 434 page tome is a treasure trove of information on the development of all types of radars and countermeasures during WWII. The 1954 story about the 62-year-old Father of Radar getting a $12.50 speeding ticket from a Canadian cop who doesn't know who he's giving the ticket to, much less how his "electronic speed-meter" works is solid gold! Watson-Watt wrote a poem about his speeding ticket experience, of Microwaves101 keeps it here! Last time we checked there were five used copies of The Pulse on Amazon.

Johannes Jauman (sometimes spelled Jaumann) was born in 1903 in Bruenn (now Brno in the Czech Republic). A citizen of Germany From 1933 to 1945, he was professor theoretical electro-technology in Bruenn. During World War II Jaumann was involved in work on "black submarines" - to reduce the radar cross section of submarine snorkels and periscopes. At the same time countries were pouring money into radar research, his efforts helped Germany develop radar absorbing materials. The project's code word was "Schornsteinfeger", which translates as "chimney sweep", a reference to the use of carbon black in the material. The first applications for Jauman's RAM was in the periscopes of U-boats, as well as flag poles of surface ships. However, the larger efforts in the U.S.A. and England to develop microwave, radar and other technologies were more crucial in winning the war. (Danke, Peter B!)

Russian "Rootless Cosmopolitan" Abram Fedorovich Ioffe was born in 1880. After studying in Germany at the Roentgen laboratory, in 1918 Ioffe founded the State Institute for Roentgenology and Radiology in St. Petersburg, one of the first research centers of Russia. In three years, the Physico-Technical Department of this Institute separated to become the Physico-Technical Institute, which today is simply called the Ioffe Institute.

Why is Ioffe in the Microwave Hall of Fame? The Ioffe Institute made a specialty out of studying the properties of semiconductors, way back in the 1930s, long before the transistor was invented. If you've ever searched the world wide web for, say, the DeBye temperature of gallium nitride, then you've probably stumbled onto the biggest treasure trove of semiconductor info on the planet. Thanks to Dr. Ioffe!

Ioffe ran his research institute until 1950, and died in 1960.

In 1937, funded by $100 by Stanford University, Sigurd (top of photo) and Russell Varian demonstrated the first klystron tube, later used in American radar systems during WWII to locate and lay waste to the Luftwaffe. In 1949 they founded Varian Associates, one of the very first technology-based companies in what would soon become silicon valley. The photo was taken by famed fotog Ansel Adams, but it looks more like a promo for a 1950's sci-fi thriller. Lifelong environmentalists, variations of their klystron tube provide millimeter-wave power today.

The Varians had considerable help in their enterprise from the start from Edward Leonard Ginzton, who was born in 1915 in the Ukraine and emigrated to the United States in 1929 after a war-torn childhood. Ginzton was an early researcher on the klystron tube, was also known for his work on megawatt sources for linear particle accelerators, gaining 50 patents. He hit his stride managing Varian Associates, helping define a management style that attracted top talent, that at the time was unique but is now the norm for high tech startups. Ginzton died in 1998. Thanks to Daniel for making sure ELG is not forgotten here!

Harold Alden Wheeler (1903-1996) is remembered today in microwave circles for the equations he developed for the characteristic impedance of microstrip (curiously, he disliked both terms, characteristic impedance and microstrip, and refused to use them). Wheeler had a remarkable career. While still at college in the early 1920s he worked part-time for the then National Bureau of Standards and developed equations for estimation of the inductance of solenoidal coils; these are still known today as Wheeler's equations. He is also know for the Incremental Inductance Rule which calculates loss due to skin depth on arbitrary transmission line geometries.

Wheeler was involved in the development of the Neutrodyne receiver and the first receiver with diode automatic volume control and linear detector. He then worked on FM and television development until WW2 when he designed IFF and radar systems.

After the war he founded Wheeler Laboratories, Inc. The company developed systems and antennas for missile tracking and guidance. In his later years Wheeler served his country as an expert consultant; he was one of some 40 members of the Defense Science Board, advising the Government on scientific matters relating to defense.

Wheeler obtained 180 US patents and many foreign ones in his 40-year career and received numerous awards and commendations. He appears in the Microwave Hall of Fame due to the efforts of Kerry from Down Under!

As of June 2007, he still doesn't have a page in Wikipedia, what's up with that?

1939 photo of kystron pioneers.

Standing, left to right are Sigurd Varian, David Webster and William Hansen. In front are Russell Varian and John Woodyard

John Robert Woodyard was born in West Virginia 1904. He began as many did in the early decades of the 20th century; he tinkered with radio, cars and electricity. He worked as a radio operator on cannery ships in the Alaska fishing industry. Later, he decided to formalise his education and studied at University of Washington. He went on to Stanford University for his Ph. D; his thesis was on the Doherty grid-modulated amplifier with Frederick Terman. The Terman-Woodyard amplifier (a relative of the Doherty amplifier) was the result.

Although several others carried the idea forward, it was John Woodyard who had the initial idea for "slabline" used in the HP 809 slotted line.

Up to and during WWII he worked with the Varian brothers as a key player in development of the klystron. After WWII his work was more in physics than in microwaves. He was a major contributor to the Berkeley Laboratory/Stanford Linear Accelerator. Woodyard died in 1981. Contributed by Kerry!

William Webster (Bill) Hansen (1909 - 1949)

Bill Hansen invented the electromagnetic resonant cavity which is the basis of several microwave devices (including the klystron).

He entered Stanford University at the age of 16; Russell Varian was also at Stanford and the two became lifelong friends.

Hansen joined the faculty at Stanford in 1934. In the late 1930s he worked with the Varian brothers, John Woodyard and others to develop the klystron. Of the origins of the klystron, Russell Varian said "among other ideas, Dr. Hansen proposed the use of a concentric line resonator for generating high voltages. Hansen and I discussed this possibility at considerable length and considered what form of concentric line would have the maximum efficiency."

In 1941 Hansen and his research group moved to the plant of the Sperry Gyroscope Company in Garden City, N.Y., contributing to developments on Doppler radar, aircraft blind-landing systems, electron acceleration and nuclear magnetic resonance. During World War II he worked in New York on defense applications of physics and electronics, including radar. Hansen was also a scientific consultant on the Manhattan Project during the World War II.

Bill Hansen died at age 39 from lung disease caused by beryllium from the devices with which he worked. Also contributed by Kerry!

Frederick Emmons Terman (1900 - 1982) Fred Terman had an early interest in the then-novel field of wireless; he built his own receivers and transmitters in his teenage years and later became a well-known radio amateur. He studied for his undergraduate degree in chemistry and master's degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University before finishing his Ph.D. at MIT in 1924. It was at MIT that he learned a "business" approach to education and engineering.

In 1942, Harald T. Friis, working in Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ, developed the theory of "noise figure" that allows engineers to calculate the signal-to-noise ratio at the output of a complex receiver chain, and thus has a powerful equation named after him. Harald was born in Naestved
Denmark, in 1893. He graduated 1916 in Electrical Engineering
from the Polytechnic Institute (founded 1829 by H.C. Oersted, the
discoverer of electromagnetics). In 1919 he received a fellowship
which enabled him to come to the United States where he studied
radio engineering at Columbia University. In 1920, Friis joined a
research group headed by at the Western Electric Company and
apparently got stuck in the U.S.A. He eventually became a U.S. citizen, which later did not prevent him from being awarded the Valdemar Poulsen Medal of the Danish Academy of Sciences. He held 31 U.S. patents submitted over five decades of research. In 1971 he published a book on his life titled "Seventy Five Years in an Exciting World". This gem not only contains some great history, but also strange glimpses of Harald's life, such as drinking near-beer instead of milk as a child, apprenticing as a blacksmith, being bitten by bedbugs in a New York hotel, and naming his favorite pipe tobacco.

Click on photo for high-res jpg! Photo courtesy of Raytheon historical archive.
Percy was a Marlboro Man!

Rudolf Kompfner was born in 1909 in Austria, and originally trained as an architect but soon turned his interests to physics and electronics. He spent some time incarcerated in England early in WWII. You can't be too careful about Austrian architects! Soon he was released and drafted to help out in a secret tube research center at the University of Birmingham. In 1942 Kompfner invented the traveling wave tube, although his lab notebook shows he had the field lines sketched sketched incorrectly about the helix! He moved to the United States after the war and worked at Bell Labs with John Pierce on other exciting microwave stuff, earning more than 50 patents. Kompfner died in December 1977. Contributed by James, who works at NASA!