A high-power, traveling wave tube amplifier

Journal Article · Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1990 · IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/27.55926· OSTI ID:6571002

Shiffler, D; Nation, J A; Kerslick, G S ^[1]

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1. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (USA). Lab. of Plasma Studies

High-power X-band traveling wave tube amplifiers (TWT's) have been fabricated and tested. The tubes have gains ranging from 13 to 35 dB at 8.76 GHz and output powers ranging from 3 to 100 MW. The amplifiers are driven by the interaction of a slow space-charge wave, propagating on an electron beam, with an electromagnetic wave supported by the structure. The electron beam, which is produced from a magnetic-field-immersed field-emission cathode, has an energy of 850 keV, a current in the 1-kA range, and a pulse duration of 100 ns. The amplifiers are designed to operate as narrow-band devices in the TM{sub 01} mode. In this paper the authors report on the amplifier characteristics and compare their performance with those calculated using conventional TWT theory. The scaling of the gain and bandwidth with the beam current are approximately as expected from theory, but the absolute magnitude of the gain is somewhat greater than expected.

• OSTI ID: 6571002
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (USA), Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (USA) Vol. 18:3; ISSN 0093-3813; ISSN ITPSB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AMPLIFICATION
AMPLIFIERS
BEAM-PLASMA SYSTEMS
BEAMS
CALCULATION METHODS
CATHODES
ELECTRODES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELECTRON BEAMS
ELECTRON TUBES
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
EMISSION
EQUIPMENT
FABRICATION
FIELD EMISSION
GAIN
INTERACTIONS
LEPTON BEAMS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MICROWAVE EQUIPMENT
MICROWAVE TUBES
PARTICLE BEAMS
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PULSE AMPLIFIERS
RADIATIONS
TESTING
TRAVELLING WAVE TUBES
WAVE PROPAGATION