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Object

Magnetron

A transparent glass vacuum tube with metallic components inside, designed to generate microwaves using a spinning electron mechanism within a magnetic field.

A vacuum tube that generates microwaves by spinning electrons through resonant cavities cut into a copper anode, in the presence of a strong magnetic field. The cavity magnetron, invented in 1940, made centimetric radar possible and is still the cheap, reliable heart of every domestic microwave oven, producing around 800 watts at 2.45 gigahertz from a device the size of a fist.

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