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The discrete nature of the electron charge gives rise to what is known as shot noise on electron beams. In this paper the spectrum of shot noise fluctuations on a spiraling electron beam is calculated. Particular attention is paid to the collective effects of the electron beam that can either decrease or increase the noise level. Shielding of the electron charge tends to decrease the noise level while the electrostatic cyclotron maser instability tends to increase the noise level. The formulation describes the competition of these effects for a radially inhomogeneous beam in a nonuniform magnetic field. Results of the calculations are compared with recently obtained experimental measures of the noise spectrum. The experiments indicate that noise is suppressed by collective effects. The calculations indicate that, while suppression is possible for a sufficiently cold electron beam, it is not expected for a beam with several percent velocity spread. The observed suppression is thus due to some collective ef...

Summary form only given. Minimization of unwanted modes is a key element in the design of gyro-amplifier RV structures. For example, a nonlinear output taper is often employed as the transition, from the near cutoff radius of the interaction circuit to a much larger output waveguide. The tapers are usually designed to avoid passive mode conversion, and thus do not consider the effect of a bunched beam. However, recent simulations,with the self-consistent MAGY code predict that higher order mode interactions with the bunched electron beam can substantially compromise the mode purity of the RF output. The interaction in the taper region is that of a travelling-wave type and is strongly dependent on the beam bunching characteristics resulting from previous interaction with the operating mode in the gyro-device circuit. To verify this prediction, an,experiment was performed to measure the RF output mode content from a Ka-band gyro-klystron at the Naval Research Laboratory. The agreement between salient theoretical and measured RF output characteristics confirms the existence higher order mode excitation in output tapers. Another example of the need to employ a self-consistent theoretical model in the design of gyro-amplifier RF,structures is the phenomenon of beam-induced RF excitation in drift sections, which are cutoff to the operating mode and are used to separate cavities in gyroklystron amplifiers. This non-resonant RF excitation is at the drive frequency and the RF field structure is that of the operating mode. The RF amplitude is found to scale linearly with the bunched beam current. The presence of RF in the drift section has important thermal implications in the design and use of lossy dielectrics in drift-sections, especially for high-average power devices.

Direct measurements of phase noise in a four-cavity, 35 GHz gyroklystron producing 50 μs pulses of 175–210 kW output power with 50–53 dB saturated gain are presented. The measurements were performed at a 10.7 MHz frequency offset from the carrier, where the noise is expected to be dominated by shot noise and where the extrinsic noise from the electron gun’s pulsed power supply is manageable. At an operating point with 70 kV beam voltage, 9 A beam current, and a beam velocity ratio of 1.3, a phase noise of −149±1 dBc/Hz was measured during the production of 180 kW output power at 50 dB gain. At a higher beam current of 10 A, the measured phase noise was −146±1 dBc/Hz during production of a 200 kW output power carrier with 53 dB gain. The directly measured phase noise levels were generally within 2–3 dB of the values expected on the basis of carrier-free noise temperature measurements. Overall, the measured gyroklystron noise levels are similar to those of conventional klystrons. Also presented are analytic...

The experimental demonstration of a high average power W-band (75–110 GHz) gyroklystron amplifier is reported. The gyroklystron has produced 118 AW peak output power and 29.5% electronic efficiency in the TE011 mode using a 66.7 kV, 6 A electron beam at 0.2% rf duty factor. At this operating point, the instantaneous full width at half-maximum (FWHM) bandwidth is 600 MHz. At 11% rf duty factor, the gyroklystron has produced up to 10.1 kW average power at 33% electronic efficiency with a 66 kV, 4.15 A electron beam. This represents world record performance for an amplifier at this frequency. At the 10.1 kW average power operating point, the FWHM bandwidth is 420 MHz. At higher magnetic fields and lower beam voltages, larger bandwidths can be achieved at the expense of peak and average output power.

Experimental measurements of electron beam shot noise in a 35 GHz, 225 kW, three-cavity gyroklystron have been obtained from both the input and output cavities. This intrinsic noise was studied in the absence of an applied carrier (i.e., at zero drive power). The spectrum of the noise emitted by the input cavity is found to have a Lorentzian shape, with peak noise power densities from the input cavity typically reaching 6.3×10−15 W/Hz (−112 dBm/Hz), and typical 3 dB bandwidths of 160 MHz. The output cavity noise spectrum is found to be equal to the input cavity noise spectrum multiplied by the measured linear frequency response of the gyroklystron. The measured noise levels at the input cavity are 0–5 dB lower than theoretical predictions for shot noise unaltered by collective effects. Furthermore, the input cavity noise power exhibits complex variations as a function of beam current, beam velocity ratio, and circuit magnetic field that are not predicted by present theory. Noise-to-carrier ratios expected...

The operating characteristics of a three-cavity, Ka-Band gyroklystron employing a large amount of stagger-tuning are reported. Particular attention is given to examining how the frequency response (peak power, bandwidth, and overall shape) is altered by changes in operating parameters. A peak power of 225 kW at 34.90 GHz, with a 2 μs pulse length, 32% efficiency, 30.3 dB saturated gain, and a 3 dB bandwidth of 0.82% (286 MHz) was obtained with a 70.2 kV, 10.0 A beam at a magnetic field of 13.07 kG. This operating point represents a compromise between the output power and the bandwidth. The operating magnetic field was found to have a dramatic influence on the power–bandwidth tradeoff; a lower field of 12.91 kG produced 245 kW with 0.63% bandwidth, while a higher field of 13.39 kG increased the bandwidth to 0.94% at a lower power of 200 kW. The results are in excellent agreement with large signal simulations.