Advanced concepts for high power RF generation using solid state materials
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (United States)
Traditionally, high power radio frequency and microwave energy have been generated using electron beam driven hard-vacuum tubes such as klystrons and magnetrons. High-power solid-state sources of RF have not been available. It is well known that a non-linear, dispersive system can convert a pulse into an array of solitons. Although this effect has been exploited in the optical field, using non-linear optical materials, little work has been done in the field of high voltage electronics. It is the goal of this work, which is just beginning, to develop sources of RF in the few hundreds of megahertz to gigahertz range with power levels in the hundreds of megawatts to the gigawatt level. To generate solitons a high voltage pulse is fed onto a transmission line that is periodically loaded with a non-linear ceramic dielectric in the paraelectric phase. The combination of the non-linearity and dispersion causes the pulse to break up into an array of solitons. A soliton-based system has several components: the solid state, high voltage, high current switch to provide the initial high voltage pulse; a shock line to decrease the rise time of the initial pulse to less than a few nanoseconds; and the soliton generating transmission line where the high power RF is generated when driven by the fast rising pulse from the shock line. The approach and progress to date will be described. {copyright} {ital 1999 American Institute of Physics.}
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 698934
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-981099--
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 474; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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