Return of the tube
vacuum tubes, the kind one saw in old radio sets and televisions, were the backbone of the electronics industry till the 1960s. However, due to their large sizes, excessive heat generation and lack of integration with other electronic components, they lost the battle to solid state devices like transistors and integrated circuits. A group of researchers has come upon a novel way to make vacuum tubes that might bring about a revival of these quaint devices, at least for some applications. The tubes are quite unlike the ones that are known