| Abstract |
Overview of the development of power converter technology since the beginnings of electrophysics in the eighteenth century. The accent is placed on the earliest history of rectifier valves, namely on the elements in the plasma, as well as those in the solid, which achieve the rectifying effect. From about 1910 the pre-industrial development stage was followed by the generation of industrial ionic power converters, the mercury-arc rectifier. The second generation of power converters operating on the basis of silicon occurs at the end of the fifties. |
