vacuum tube amplifiers

761 Pages·2011·51.69 MB·English

MASSACIIUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECIINOLOGY
RADIATION LABORATORY SERIES
N. Editor ..
LOUIS RIDENOUR, in·Chi~f
-
VACUUM TUBE AMPLIFIERS
l.IASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
RADIATION LABORATORY SERIES
Board of Editors
LOUIS N. RIDENOUR, Editor-in-Chief
GEORGE B. COLLINS, Deputy Editor-in-Chief
BRITTON CHANCE, S. A. GOUDSMIT, R. G. HERB, HDBERT 1\1. JAMES, JULIAN K.KNIPP,
JAMES L. LAWSON, LEON B. LINFORD, CAROL G. MONTGOMERY, C. NEWTON, ALBBR'l'
M. STONE, LOUIS A. TURNER, GEORGE E. VAI. . LEY, JR., HERBERT H. WHEATON
1. RADAR SYSTEM ENGINEERING-,R idenour
2. R4DAR AIDS TO NAVIGATION-Hall
3. RADAR BEACONs-Roberts
4. LORAN-Pierce, l.1 cJ(enzie, and lVoodward
. 5. PULSE GENERATORs-Glasoe and Lcbacqz
6. MICROWAVE MAGNETRONS-Collins
7. KLYSTRONS AND MICROWAVE TRIODEs-IIamilton, 1{nipp, and 1(uper
8. PRINCIPLES OF MICROWAVE CIRCUITs-111ontgomery, Dicke, and Purcell
9. MICROWAVE TRANSMISSION CIRCUITs-Ragan
10. WAVEGUIDE HANDBOOK-11farcuvitz
11. TECHNIQUE OF IVIICROWAVE J\IEASUREMENTS-'l tIontgomery
12. MICROWAVE ANTENNA THEORY AND DESIGN-Silver
13. PROPAGATION OF SHORT RADIO VVAvEs-Kerr
14. MICROWAVE DUPLExERs-Smullin and 11J ontgomery
15. CRYSTAL RECTIl<'IERS-Torrey and Whitmer
16. MICROWAVE J\1IXERs-Pound
17. COMPONENTS HANDBOOK-Blackburn
18. VACUUM TUBE AMPLIFIERs-Valley and vVallman
19. WAVEFORMs-Chance, Hughes, M acNichol, Sayre, and Williams
,20. ELECTRONIC TIME MEASUREMENTs-Chance, Hulsizer, MacNichol,
and Williams
21. ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTs-Green'Wood, H oldam, and MacRae
22. CATHODE RAY TUBE DISPLAYS-Soller, Starr, and Valley
23. MICROWAVE RECEIVERs-Van Voorhis
24. THRESHOLD SIGNALS-Lawson and Uhlenbeck
25. THEORY OF SERVOMECHANIsMs-James, Nichols, and Phillips
26. RADAR SCANNERS AND RADOMEs-Cady, KareWz, and rPurner
27. COMPUTING MECHANISMS AND LINKAGES-Svoboda
28. INDEx-Linford
VACUUM TUBE AMPLIFIERS
Edz:ted by
G'EORGE E. VALLE'Y, JJ1.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS
MASSACHURBTTR INSTITUTE OF TJ<;CHNOLOGY
I-IENI{Y WALLMAN
ASSOCIATB PHOFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
OFJ"lCE OF' SCIENTIFIC RJr.AEARCH AND DE;VgLOPMI~NT
NATIONAL DEFENSg RESI']AHCII C()MM:rrTBl~
NEW YOR.K· rpORON'PO· LONDON
MCGRAVV-IlILL BOO]( COlJJPAN L INC.
1948
VACUUM TUBE AMPLIFIERS
COPYRIGHT, 1948" BY THE
MCGRA"W-I-IILL BOOK COMPANY, INC.
PRI:N'TED IN THE UNITED STATES O~~ AMERICA.
All rights reserved. . This book, (n"
parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission of
the publishers.
THE MAPLE PRESS COMPANY, YORX, PA.
VACUUA1 TlIBE A)l1PLI}?IERS
EDITORIAL STAFl?
GEORGE E .. VALLEY, JR.
HENRY WALLMAN
W
HELEN ENETSI{ Y
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
YARDLEY BEERS
ERIC DURAND
HAROLD FLEISCHER
W.
JOHN GRAY
J.
lIARRY LIPI{'IN
DUNCAN MACRAE, JR.
E.
JAY SCHREMP
Q.
ItICI-IARD TWISS
ROBERT M.WALKEl~
W
I-IENRY AI.ALMAN

}I'oreword
THE tremendous research and development effort that ·went into the
development of radar and related techniques during World War IT
resulted not only in hundreds of radar sets for military (and some for
possible peacetime) use but also in a great body of information and new
techniques in the electronics and high-frequency fields. Because this
basic material may be of great value to science and engineering, it seemed
most important to publish it as soon as security permitted.
The Radiation Laboratory of MIT, ·which operated under the super
vision of the National Defense Research Committee, undertook the grea,1.
task of preparing these volumes. The work described herein, however, iH
the collective result of work done at many laboratories, Army, Navy,
university, and industrial, both in this country and in IiJngland, Canada,
and other Dominions.
The Radiation Laboratory, once its proposals ·were approved and
finances provided by the Office of Scientific H,OBettreh ~\'nd Developrnen t,
chose .Louil:-> N. R.idenour as Editor-in-Chief to lead and (lireet the
entin~
project. An editoria,l staff 'was then ~deeted of tho::;c be:;t qunlified for
this type of ta,sk. Finally the authors for the val'iou::; VOlUlrleS or ehaptel'~
or seetiol1swere chosen frOln arnong those experts \vho wore intirnately
familiar \vith the various fields, and ·who were able a,nd willing to write
the summaries of them. This entire staff agreed to rema,in at ·work aL
MI'I' for six months or more after the work of the Radiation I)abol'atol'Y
'was complete. 'These volumes stand as a monum.ent to this group.
These vol-urnes serve as a memorial to the un.named hundreds and
thousan.ds of ot/her scientists, engineers, and otherswl1o H,C,tUttl1y o!Ll'ried
on the resel:1rch, develop men t, antl engineering \vork the ts of vvhieh
re~rul
are herein described. Thore ·were so rnany invol ved in thiH 'work and they
worked so closely together even. though often in ·widely ::lOpt.LnLted labora
tories tha,t it is impossible to n:;uno 01' even to knO'w tho~e who contributed
to a particular idea or dcvelopnlellt. Only eerta,in ones who wrote
report~
or artie1es have even been luentionod. 13ut, to all those ·who contributed
in any way to th.is great cooperative development enterpriso, both in thit::l
country and in England, these volumes al'e dedicated.
L. A. I)oBRID(tF}.
vii

Prejace
SOON after Drs. L 1. Rabi and L. A. DuBridge decided that tile tech
nica.l knovvledge of the Radiation I..Jaboratory staff should be pre
served, it \:vas evident that at least Olle complete book \vould be required
on lumped-pa.ram(:Jter circuits, The early planlling; for that book. was
done during a series of conferences called by L. J. IIavvworth, anda.ttended
by B. Chance andG.E. Valley, ~Jr.
It wasdi:ffi.cult to arrange all the subjectrnatter in a'Vvay that\vouldbe
easy to read and economical of space. It 'Would. ha-ve been possible to
describe the various electrieal devices in order, b1.1t todescri be eaell
illstrument completely "\vould hnve involved an intolerable 3lUounii of
repetition concerning ba;::;ic circuits, SlH.~,h as D:1ultivibrator8 and a,mpli
neTS. It vvould also ha.ve l'oquirecl an intolerable a1110UIl t of cross
indexing if the "\vork were to be uSl1ble by those interest/cd, not in the
particular instrUlllents described, but in the aI)plication of their design
principles to completely different problems. Iii '\vas apparent, too, i,haii
the ""vork should not stress radar.
~rhe maiieria] \vas therefore divided into t"y() pa,rtH.: the first part t.o
include the basic prineiplcs of circuit design, tho second to perta,in to the:
a.. ssembly of basic cirCUIts into functional instl'u.m~nts stleh as ro(~eiver~
~1nd data display systems. 'These decisions weTe ma,d(~ in the interests of
(~lm'ity n.nd brevity, P=-ven so, 11pOll completion of the c()nsequenti
outline, it was evident iihat sever£Ll voillmes \vould be required, Acoord
ingly new olltlines \Nere prepared for each of these and "'were then revised
:::;eparately for each vohtme by committ€es compor:;ed of'the eclitors and
author's coneerned.
rrhe first of these books, CO'rnpOtwnt.s II andbook, dit->el18seK the phYBioal
embodiments of tho hlnlpod-piH'i~lnetel'S th.OlllSdvC8: l'esistors, eablcK,
rnotol's, vaeuum tubes, etc. Next, V (LC1,t?...l'Yn ':lu,b(J A?n1Jlijicr8 a,nd TVa1J(.~­
jmrns di~cuss the prineil)les of cil'euit d0sign, respoctively, for cireui ts th[tt
nTe cssontia,lly linear (amplifiers) al1ci for (~ireuits that are essenti::111y
nonlillettr (oscilla, tors, eloctl'Ollic s\vitches, an.d th0 like). The fon r
follolving volmucs eoneel'll thDmselvc,9 "with tIle design of complex fUD(!
tion~11 devices. 1"1'Ihoy al'e EloctTO'nic r'i'mc JJ1ca,'iu,rement.s, Electrom:c
[nstTumentg, (]a thode Ray 'l7ube Disl)ZaY8, and kI'icrowavG /ceceiver,<:;.
The amplifiers disCllsAed in this volume aro designed to httve 0xk(~rne
ix
x: PREFACE
values in one of several of the pertinent chara.cteristics: bandwidth,
sensitivity, linearity, constancy of gain over long periods of time, etc.
In most cases the design of such amplifiers, ill which the ultimate per
formance is obtained from available types of C0l11pOnents, cannot be
carried out by simple rules of thumb.
The volume therefore begins with a chapter 011 "Linear Analysis and
Transient Response" ,:vhich lays the theoretical basis for the high-fidelity
reproduction of transient signals, such. as rectangular pulses. Although
the chapter is rather theoretical, a summary is contained in Sec. 1'10 of
the precise steps needed to determine the transient response of a given
network. The practical application of these principles is examined in the
next chapter, "High-fidelity Pulse Amplifiers," for direct, or "video,"
pulses. The resemblance of this material to that contained in Chap. 3
is only superficial; "Pulse Amplifiers of Large Dynaluic Range" is ~1hout
the design of amplifiers intended to deal with pulses of widely v::Lt'ying
magnitUde, all other characteristics being secondary. Ch.apters 4 through
7 deal \vith the theoretical and practical aspects of several lTIctrhods of
amplifying, with varying degrees of fidelity, pulse-modulated c[tlTier fre
quencies as high as 200 Me/sec. Although the design prin(~iplc~ ~\'re
examined in these chapters chiefly from the standpoint of relatively high
frequencies, they are perfectly general in their application. That this is
true is exemplified by Chap. 10, "Lovv-freqllency Feedback Amplifiers,"
wherein some of the results of Chap. 4 are applied to filter amplifiers op(~r­
ating at frequencies as low as .50 cps.
Chapter 8 deals with the examination anel adjustment, of the amplifiers
previously described, especially vvhen they aTe employeel as internlcdiat,(~
frequency amplifiers in superheterodyne receivers. Chapter~) diselU-)He~
some of the innumerable ways in which inverse feedback eUll be enlployed
to stabilize the gain of an amplifier. The '\~'ell-kno\vn pl'ineiples of
Nyquist] Bode, and others are applied particularly to circuits in ",,"hieh
inductances do not appear, and use is made of this fact to sin1pEfy the
analysis; in addition the chapter describes the successively less approxi
mate phases through which the design of such an amplifiol" ca,n proeccd.
Chapter 11 recounts the experience at the Radiation Laboratory eoneern
ing the design of rugged and reliable direct-coupled amplifiers, no pa,r
ticular elnphasis being placed upon extreme sensitivity.
Chapter 12, a Amplifier Sensitivjty," examines the subject of noise
in a rigorous and very theoretical manneI'. The design of an1.plificrs for
best signal-to-noise ratio is discussed in Ch~Lp. 13, "Minimal-noise Input
Circuits," and in Chap. 14 the experimental rneasureluent of a.lnplifier
sensitivity is explained.
Appendix A contains an existence theorem. on the physical realizability
of filter amplitude characteristics.