Triode

Triode

A triode is an electronic amplification device having three active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a vacuum tube (or "valve" in British English) with three elements: the filament or cathode, the grid, and the plate or anode. The triode vacuum tube is often viewed as the first electrical amplification device, although the relay (which contained mechanical parts) is usually viewed, in a broad sense, as the first actual electrical amplifier.

Invention

The original three-element device was patented in 1908 by Lee De Forest who developed it from his original two-element 1906 Audion. The Audion did incorporate, in a crude form, the key principle of allowing amplification. However it was not until around 1912 that other researchers, while attempting to improve the service life of the audion, stumbled on the principle of the true vacuum tube. The name triode appeared later, when it became necessary to distinguish it from other generic kinds of vacuum tubes with more or less elements (eg diodes, tetrodes, pentodes etc.). The original Audion tubes were not vacuum tubes however, as they deliberately contained some gas at low pressure. The name triode is only applied to vacuum tubes.

Operation

The principle of its operation is that, as with a thermionic diode, the heated filament causes a flow of electrons that are attracted to the plate and create a current. Applying a negative charge to the control grid will tend to repel some of the (also negatively charged) electrons back towards the filament: the larger the charge on the grid, the smaller the current to the plate. If an AC signal is superimposed on the DC bias of the grid, an amplified version of the AC signal appears in the plate circuit.

Applications

Although triodes are now largely obsolete in consumer electronics, having been replaced by the transistor, triodes continue to be used in certain high-end and professional audio applications, as well as in microphone preamplifiers and electric guitar amplifiers.

Some guitarists routinely drive their amplifiers to the point of saturation, in order to produce a desired distortion tone. Many people prefer the sound of triodes in such an application, since the distortion of a tube amplifier, which has a "soft" saturation characteristic, can be more pleasing to the ear than that of a typical solid-state amplifier, which is linear up to the limits of its supply voltage and then clips abruptly. However, this typically only applied to the power stage of a tube amplifier.

ee also

*Vacuum tube
*List of vacuum tubes
*European triode festival

External links

* [http://paillard.claude.free.fr/ _fr. "Les lampes radio"] — A French page on thermionic valves. Of particular interest is the 17 minute video showing the manual production of triodes.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • triode — [ trijɔd ] n. f. • 1923; de tri , d apr. diode ♦ Phys. Tube électronique possédant trois électrodes (anode, cathode, grille) dans lequel le courant peut être réglé par le potentiel de la grille. Une triode amplificatrice. ● triode nom féminin (de …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • triode — ► NOUN 1) a thermionic valve having three electrodes. 2) a semiconductor rectifier having three connections. ORIGIN from TRI (Cf. ↑tri ) + ELECTRODE(Cf. ↑electrode) …   English terms dictionary

  • triode — [trī′ōd΄] n. [ TRI + (ELECTR)ODE] an electronic device with three electrodes; esp., an electron tube with an anode, cathode, and grid …   English World dictionary

  • Triode — Eine Elektronenröhre ist ein elektronisches Bauelement, das aus einem evakuierten oder gasgefüllten Kolben aus Glas, Stahl oder Keramik besteht, in den mehrere Elektroden, mindestens eine Kathode mit Heizung und eine Anode, eingelassen und von… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Triode — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Lampe (homonymie). L Audion de Lee De Forest, 1906 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Triode — triodas statusas T sritis fizika atitikmenys: angl. triode vok. Triode, f rus. триод, m pranc. triode, f; tube à trois électrodes, m …   Fizikos terminų žodynas

  • triode — triodas statusas T sritis fizika atitikmenys: angl. triode vok. Triode, f rus. триод, m pranc. triode, f; tube à trois électrodes, m …   Fizikos terminų žodynas

  • triode — /truy ohd/, n. Electronics. a vacuum tube containing three elements, usually anode, cathode, and control grid. [1920 25; TRI + (ELECTR)ODE] * * * ▪ electronics        electron tube consisting of three electrodes cathode filament, anode plate, and …   Universalium

  • Triode — Tri|o|de 〈f. 19〉 Elektronenröhre mit den drei Polen Anode, Kathode u. Steuergitter [<grch. tri... „drei...“ + hodos „Weg“] * * * Tri|o|de, die; , n [zu griech. tri = drei , geb. nach ↑ Diode] (Elektrot.): ↑ Röhre (4 a) mit drei Elektroden. * * …   Universal-Lexikon

  • triode d’émission — generatorinis triodas statusas T sritis fizika atitikmenys: angl. transmitting triode vok. Generatortriode, f; Sendetriode, f rus. генераторный триод, m pranc. triode d’émission, f; triode émettrice, f …   Fizikos terminų žodynas

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”