Mark Thek, experienced physicist and engineering professional, headed operations at Los Angeles’ Esterline Power Systems for 22 years. Formerly, he served 13 years as a director with the Hughes Aircraft Company. One of Mark Thek’s achievements at Hughes was designing electron guns for traveling wave tube (TWT) amplifiers. The TWT is a thermionic valve that engineers commonly use in designs for various high power microwave amplifiers. These devices offer the benefit of a one to two octave bandwidth paired with exceptionally high gain capacities (30 to 60 decibels). TWTs also exhibit linear characteristics that relate signal input power to signal output power by a proportional gain factor. Due to their wide-bandwidth and low-noise characteristics, TWTs work well for RF amplification in microwave equipment. The power-amplification capacity of any given TWT depends on the length and voltage of its internal helical conductor, the diameter of its electron beam, and its external power input. |
AuthorPresident of Esterline Power Systems - Mark Thek Archives
February 2021
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