Kompfner was born in Vienna to Jewish parents.^[1] He was originally trained as an architect and after receiving his university degree in 1933 he moved to England (due to the rise of anti-Semitism), where he worked as an architect until 1941. He had a strong interest in physics and electronics, and after being briefly detained by the British at the start of World War II he was recruited to work in a secret microwave vacuum tube research program at the University of Birmingham. While there, Kompfner invented the TWT in 1943. After the war he became a British citizen, continued working for the Admiralty as a scientist, and also studied physics at the University of Oxford, receiving his D.Phil. in 1951.^[2]

In 1965, he received an honorary doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology.^[3]

• Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier (issued August 27, 1957)
• Traveling Wave Tube (issued October 29, 1957)
• Electron Beam System (issued November 5, 1957)

• Traveling Wave Tube (issued May 13, 1958)
• Electron Beam System (issued October 21, 1958)
• Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission (issued November 11, 1958)

• Traveling Wave Tube (issued January 6, 1959)
• Direct View Storage Tube (issued March 24, 1959)
• Backward Wave Tube (issued June 16, 1959)
• Traveling Wave Tube (issued July 14, 1959)
• Apparatus Utilizing Slalom Focusing (issued August 11, 1959)
• Non-reciprocal Wave Transmission Device (issued November 3, 1959)
• Backward Wave Amplifier (issued December 8, 1959)

• Non-reciprocal Elements in Microwave Tubes (issued January 26, 1960)
• Coaxial Couplers (issued February 16, 1960)
• Pulse Coincidence Detecting Tube (issued April 19, 1960)
• Electron Gun for Slalom Focusing Systems (issued May 31, 1960)
• High Efficiency Velocity Modulation Devices (issued August 16, 1960)
• Traveling Wave Tube (issued October 4, 1960)

• Low Noise Amplifier (issued February 14, 1961)
• High Frequency Amplifier (issued February 21, 1961)
• Backward Wave Tube (issued May 23, 1961)
• Elastic Wave Parametric Amplifier (issued December 5, 1961)

• Parallel High Frequency Amplifier Circuits (issued February 15, 1962)
• Scanning Horn-Reflector Antenna (issued February 13, 1962)
• Microwave Filter (issued June 26, 1962)
• Broadband Cyclotron Wave Parametric Amplifier (issued August 28, 1962)
• High Frequency Generator (issued December 4, 1962)

• Traveling Wave Light Modulator (issued May 12, 1964)
• Artificial Scattering Elements for Use as Reflectors in Space Communication Systems (issued September 29, 1964)
• Detector for Optical Communication System (issued October 27, 1964)

• Beam Collector with Auxiliary Collector for Repelled or Secondarily-Emitted Electrons. (Issued 6 /8, 1965)
• Antenna System (issued July 20, 1965)
• Sinusoidal-Shaped Lens for Light Wave Communication (issued December 21, 1965)
• Transmission of Light Waves (issued December 21, 1965)

• Optical Maser Amplifier (issued May 24, 1966)
• Antenna System (issued September 13, 1966)
• Triple Element S-Lens Focusing System (issued November 15, 1966)

• Spherical Reflector Elastic Wave Delay Device with Planar Transducers (issued May 2, 1967)

• Intracavity Image Converter (issued July 8, 1969)

• Receiving Antenna Apparatus Compensated for Antenna Surface Irregularities (issued January 13, 1970)
• Anti-Doppler Shift Antenna for Mobile Radio (issued March 24, 1970)
• Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator (issued March 31, 1970)
• Multiple-Pass Light-Deflecting Modulator (issued March 31, 1970)
• Optical Waveguide (issued April 14, 1970)
• Time Division Multiplex Optical Transmission System (issued April 14, 1970)
• Digital Light Deflecting Systems (issued June 2, 1970)
• Method and Apparatus for Obtaining 3-Dimensional Images from Recorded Standing Patterns (issued July 14, 1970)
• Optical Heterodyne Receiver with Pulse Widening or Stretching (issued September 22, 1970)
• Light Communication System with Improved Signal-to-Noise Ratio (issued October 6, 1970)

• Method of and Apparatus for Acoustic Imaging (issued March 15, 1977)

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Kompfner, Rudolf (November 1964). The Invention of the Traveling-Wave Tube. San Francisco Press. p. 30. ISBN 978-0911302011. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

• "IEEE Medal Of Honor Recipients, 1973" (PDF). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 June 2010., p. 4
• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir