Electronics in the Last Century
Gao Xinyan · Vacuum Electronics · 2004
One of the greatest science and technology fields in the 20th century was the growing up, development and wide application of the electronics. It was considered usually that the invention of vacuum diode in 1904 based on the theory of electromagnetic wave and the development of free electron signed the nascence of the electronics. The exploitation and utilization of electromagnetic spectrum resources were the base and power of the development of electronics. As viewed from uniform spectrum, optics as well as the research of microwave was belonged to the field of electronics, and became indispensable part of wireless electronics. The research of physical conception, physical process in the interaction between charged particle stream and electromagnetic, and the methods and conditions of effective energy transformation in the interaction used different physical mechanism were the basic task of the electronics. As viewed from the electron devices, the electronics included vacuum electronics and solid-state electronics. And the modern electronics would deal with the motion rules of the free electron, the quasi-free electron and the bound electron and the interaction between them and the electromagnetic from the view of the electron motion rules. Integrate circuit, the laser and the gyroradiation of relativistic free electron were three important discovers and inventions in 1958. Accordingly the modern electronics such as the semiconductor electronics (microelectronics), the laser electronics and the relativistic electronics etc began to develop. The miniaturization, the micro-miniaturization and the function-integration of the electron devices would expand the exploitation and occupy of electromagnetic spectrum to the light wave and infrared millimeter wave.