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In this paper, an angular radial extended interaction amplifier (AREIA) that consists of a pair of angular extended interaction cavities is proposed. Both the convergence angle cavity and the divergence angle cavity, which are designed for the converging beam and diverging beam, respectively, are investigated to present the potential of the proposed AREIA. They are proposed and explored to improve the beam–wave interaction capability of W-band extended interaction klystrons (EIKs). Compared to conventional radial cavities, the angular cavities have greatly decreased the ohmic loss area and increased the characteristic impedance. Compared to the sheet beam (0°) cavity, it has been found that the convergence angle cavity has a higher effective impedance and the diverging beam has a weaker space-charge effect under the same ideal electron beam area; the advantages become more obvious as the propagation distance increases. Particle-in-cell (PIC) results have shown that the diverging beam (8°) EIA performs better at an output power of 94 GHz under the condition of lossless, while the converging beam (−2°) EIA has a higher output power of 6.24 kW under the conditions of ohmic loss, an input power of 0.5 W, and an ideal electron beam of 20.5 kV and 1.5 A. When the loss increases and the beam current decreases, the output power of the −2° EIA can be improved by nearly 30% compared to the 0° EIA, and the −2° EIA has a greatly improved beam–wave interaction capacity than conventional EIAs under those conditions. In addition, an angular radial electron gun is designed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies and summarizes the operating characteristics of a ${G}$ -band folded waveguide traveling wave tube (TWT) amplifier enhanced by the $\pi $ -mode extended interaction cavities. Compared with conventional ${G}$ -band TWTs, the proposed amplifier can at once obtain a higher gain in a shorter interaction circuit length and ensure a proper operating bandwidth. The key of the design is introducing the $\pi $ -mode multigap resonant cavity with alternating wide and narrow slots, which will improve the working performance of the whole device by shortening the length of the interaction circuit, enhancing its interaction effect, and improving its gain of unit length. In this design, the operation bandwidth is expanded by stagger tuning technique. In addition, the influence of cavity loss is examined so that the optimal performance is achieved. The PIC simulation results show that when the operating voltage is 21 kV and the operating current 80 mA, the maximum average output power of the designed TWT amplifier is 65.78 W at 217.4 GHz, which is corresponding to the maximum gain and efficiency of 37.38 dB and 3.9%, respectively. The gain per unit length is 12.64 dB/cm and the 3-dB bandwidth is 3.5 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A $Q$ -band traveling-wave tube (TWT) with profiled helix pitches and profiled inner diameters of slow wave structure (SWS) is proposed. The transmission characteristics of the $Q$ -band TWT are simulated by the Computer Simulation Technology (CST). In the operating frequency band (36.5–41.5 GHz), the simulated voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) is less than 1.5. In addition, the beam–wave interaction is simulated to predict the performance of the $Q$ -band TWT when the beam voltage and beam current are 8.5 kV and 60 mA, respectively, and the axial focusing magnetic field is 0.4 T. In the operating frequency band, the self-oscillation is well suppressed, and the device efficiency of the $Q$ -band TWT exceeds 63.5%, and the saturated output power and gain exceed 83 W and 45 dB, respectively, especially the device efficiency can reach the maximum of 69.5% at 37 GHz. When it is backed off 6 dB from the saturation, the device efficiency exceeds 40.5%, up to 42.7% at 39 GHz. Preliminary experiments have confirmed the design. These results show that the proposed $Q$ -band TWT has important applications to the next generation wireless communication system with high efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 0.14 THz angular radial extended interaction oscillator (AREIO) is proposed in this article. The characteristic impedance (${R}/{Q}$), the normalized equivalent conductance (${g}_{e}$), and the starting condition of the cavity are calculated and analyzed. When the metal loss is considered, in order to achieve the starting condition, it is necessary to increase the period length (${p}$) to improve $\vert {g}_{e}\vert $. The performance of the AREIO is simulated by particle-in-cell (PIC). The voltage tuning range and the output performance under different angular angles of the cavity are investigated. Under the condition of lossless and the electron beam of 11.5 kV and 1.5 A, the peak output power and interaction efficiency of the AREIO (8°) are 5.46 kW and 31.7%, which have increased by 24.1% and 6.2% in comparison with conventional sheet beam. When considering the metal loss, the optimal angular angle will decrease to 4°. In addition, the cavity is fabricated and tested, and the results of ${S}_{{11}}$ in operating mode are consistent with the simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel electron-optical system (EOS) for ${G}$ -band traveling-wave tubes (TWT) is investigated by simulation and verified by experiment. The EOS includes a sheet beam electron gun, a tunable periodic cusped magnetic focusing (TPCMF), and a collector. An elliptical focus electrode (FE) featuring a simple geometry and easy fabrication is utilized to compress the pencil beam into the sheet beam with a cross section of 0.4 mm $\times0.1$ mm. The electron gun with a cylindrical cathode of 0.8 mm diameter generates the sheet beam with voltage of 22 kV and current of 115 mA. Based on the sheet beam electron gun, the TPCMF with easy assembly and compact size is then proposed. The experimental results show that the beam transmission is 92.1% within a beam tunnel (its length 21.2 mm and cross section 0.8 mm $\times0.15$ mm). The EOS is suitable for ${G}$ -band TWT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a simulation method to investigate the noise mechanism of traveling-wave tube (TWT). Based on the nonlinear theory of Lagrangian description, 1-D noise model is established to analyze the shot noise and the velocity noise of the electron beam in the drift space, which clearly shows that the beam noise propagates along the electron beam with standing wave shape. The shot noise and the velocity noise can be periodically converted into each other along electron beam transmission, which is consistent with the prediction of the classical noise theory developed by Pierce and Danielson (1954). Using the nonlinear beam–wave interaction theory, the evolution process of the shot noise and the velocity noise of the electron beam transforming to the electromagnetic wave in TWT is illustrated. The calculated results show that the input position of the slow wave circuit may affect the noise power spectral density (NPSD) of the device. The proposed method can provide more intuitive and simple images to explain the noise mechanism of TWT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel electron-optical system is proposed for dual azimuthally stacked radial sheet electron beams (ARSEBs). The two sheet beams are emitted from curved surfaces of two cathodes and are focused by a focusing electrode, which is carefully designed to produce a symmetric field distribution for the two beams and to avoid interference between the beams. A common tunable periodic cusped magnetic focusing system is also designed to focus the two ARSEBs. The dual sheet beams are used in a traveling wave tube (TWT) consisting of a cascade of two azimuthally supported angular log-periodic strip-line (ASALS) slow-wave structures (SWSs). The transmission efficiency in the presence of beam–wave interaction is 93%. The particle-in-cell simulation results show that for a beam voltage of 4400 V and a current of 0.39 A, the proposed cascaded TWT has a maximum gain of 32.5 dB at 35 GHz and a maximum output power of 180 W; this is a significant gain improvement over a TWT using a single ASALS SWS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel sine groove waveguide slow wave structure (SGW-SWS), originated from the sine waveguide (SW), is proposed for a wideband terahertz (THz) traveling wave tube (TWT). SGW-SWS not only has high interaction impedance in a relatively wide frequency band, but also has a wide beam tunnel. In addition, it can be fabricated using the Nano-Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling techniques. The high-frequency simulation results show that, under the same dispersion, the passband of SGW-SWS is 23 GHz wider than that of SW-SWS, and the average interaction impedance of SGW-SWS is higher than that of SW-SWS in the whole passband. And the transverse dimension of beam tunnel is independent of the dispersion characteristics of SGW-SWS, so the beam current can be further increased by enlarging the size of beam tunnel. Moreover, the particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation results reveal that the saturated power and electronic efficiency of SGW-TWT in the frequency range of 201–260 GHz are more than 84.9 W and 2.72%, respectively, when the operating voltage is 20.8 kV and the beam current is 150 mA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a novel dielectric-supported staggered dual-meander-line (DS-SDML) planar slow-wave structure (SWS) is proposed for a traveling wave tube (TWT) working at ${E}$ -band. The proposed staggered arrangement of meander-lines (MLs) leads to a stronger beam–wave interaction and achieves higher output power as compared to the symmetric arrangement. The input–output couplers have been designed by using staggered stepped double ridge waveguide, to connect the standard ${E}$ -band rectangular waveguide and the DS-SDML SWS. An attenuator and pitch tapering have been applied to the proposed SWS to suppress the unwanted frequencies and to improve the output power. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation results show that for an 11.8-kV, 200-mA sheet-beam, the output power can reach 283 W at 75 GHz, with a maximum gain and electronic efficiency of 34.5 dB and 11.9%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traveling wave tube (TWT) is an attractive solution for wideband and high-power sources or amplifiers in the terahertz (THz) band. In this article, a novel slow-wave structure (SWS) for TWT, named double tunnel sine waveguide (DTSW), which is based on sine waveguide (SW), is proposed. The following key technologies are adopted: 1) the rectangular holes, at which the operating mode is cutoff, are alternately opened on the sine-shaped ridges to form two electron beam tunnels and 2) the lower surface of rectangular holes is flush with the top of sine-shaped ridges. Compared with the SW-SWS, DTSW-SWS has the wider operating band and higher interaction impedance under the condition that the phase velocity of the two SWSs is at the same level. In addition, DTSW-SWS is simple in structure and easy to fabricate. The particle-in-cell simulation results reveal that DTSW-TWT has an output power of more than 202 W in the frequency range of 202–255 GHz with the maximum power of ~405 W and electron efficiency of ~9.8% at 215 GHz, under the operating voltage of 23 kV and beam current of 180 mA. Therefore, the DTSW should be considered as a promising SWS for the high-power and wideband THz traveling wave amplifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large signal beam-wave interaction model for the analysis of folded waveguide traveling wave-tube (FWG TWT) is proposed. The slow-wave structure is modeled as a sequence of coupled resonant cavities. The electron beam is treated as a current source that can induce electromagnetic waves in the cavity. The beam-wave interacting process is modeled as an active matrix. Compared with the other models only calculating the in-band characteristic of FWG TWT, our model can provide characteristic analysis in both in-band and near cutoff regions, and thus broaden operating bandwidth and suppress oscillation. As verification, two FWG TWT examples were designed by using our model. Its performances predicted by our code agree well with that obtained by the experiment and particle-in-cell software, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts forward a novel dual-beam overmoded folded waveguide (FW) slow-wave structure (SWS), which is loaded with photonic crystals. In this novel structure, the two electron beams pass through the small gaps between the photonic crystal structures and the FW; the dimension of the FW is twice larger than that of the fundamental mode structure. The novel dual-beam photonic crystal overmoded FW traveling-wave tube (TWT) is proposed on the basis of the SWS. And, a mode converter is introduced to achieve the connection between the SWS and the input/output structure, and the mode transformation. At the operating voltage of 21.2 kV and the operating current of 320 mA, the proposed TWT can generate 128 W of output power at 220 GHz, and its 3-dB bandwidth is 7 GHz, ranging from 216 to 223 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-harmonic traveling-wave tube (HHTWT) is designed, developed, and tested in this paper. This device is configured as a multiplier–amplifier with Q-band input signals and its third harmonic, i.e., D-band output power. The tested result demonstrates that 280 mW at 133.5 GHz is obtained as a result of 200 mW at 44.5-GHz input signal. The simulation and experiment validate that the high-harmonic radiation can be generated and amplified in the HHTWT. The approach described in this paper could find application in exploring high power, wideband tunable terahertz source. This paper is expanded from a conference paper on IVEC 2017. The detail design produce and tested result are added in this paper. The explanation of the simulation and tested results is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Angle log-periodic meander line microstrip radial sheet beam traveling-wave tube is one kind of novel minimized vacuum device with low beam voltage. To generate and focus the radial sheet electron beam, a novel radial divergent sheet beam electron optical system, including the tractable radial sheet electron beam gun and miniaturized and feasible radial small tunable periodic cusped magnetic focusing system, is proposed in this paper. The fan-shaped radial sheet beam is emitted from the cylindrical surface cathode, compressed in axial direction, and confined in azimuthal direction by the focusing electrode. Simulation results show that the total emission of the angular radial sheet beam gun is 51.2 mA with the dimensions of 0.26~\text mm \times 8 ° under the voltage of 1.7 kV, and the fan-shaped radial sheet beam can totally pass through the fan-shaped drift tunnel under the magnetic field. The experimental results are good in agreement with the simulation results. The tested angular radial sheet beam transmission efficiency is >90% in an 18.8-mm-length beam tunnel with the fill factor of 50%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The symmetrical microstrip angular log-periodic meander-line (ALPML) slow-wave structure (SWS), which is suitable for Ka-band low-voltage traveling-wave tubes, is described in this paper. The dispersion characteristics and coupling impendence of this kind of SWS are achieved by simulation. A radial uniform magnetic field of 0.4 T is developed using radially magnetized permanent magnets to focus the radial sheet electron beam. To exploit the potentialities of the symmetrical ALPML SWS, the beam–wave interaction is carried out with a radial convergent and a divergent sheet electron beam. For the radial divergent electron beam with a voltage of 791 V and a current of 0.3 A, an output power over 60 W with an electron efficiency of 26% at 30 GHz is achieved from particle-in-cell simulation. The effects of misalignments and phase mismatches are carried out at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a high-power Ka-band traveling-wave tube (TWT) driven by a sheet electron beam is proposed and demonstrated by means of the simulation and experimental methods. The single grating rectangular waveguide with large width-to-height ratio is used as the slow-wave structure (SWS). An $E$ -plane bend energy coupler is put forward to feed this wide SWS. An irregular transition structure between the input waveguide and the SWS is suggested and designed, which is beneficial to suppress the self-excited oscillation. For a practical electron beam (20 mm $\times \,\, 1$ mm, 150.1 kV, 850 A, and 20-ns), the output power of this single rectangular grating sheet beam TWT is larger than 750 kW from 34.5 to 35.4 GHz. The maximum power is 1.21 MW at 35 GHz, corresponding to a gain of 20.4 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We have theoretically investigated the transport of a sheet electron beam focused by a uniform axial magnetic field in a metamaterial-loaded waveguide. A theoretical model has been proposed to analyze the sheet electron beam transport. In this model, we have used CST simulations to obtain the mean potential on the metamaterial as the boundary condition. According to the boundary condition, the space-charge electric field and the beam curling have been theoretically analyzed. It is found that the beam curling can be greatly reduced by decreasing the spacing between the metamaterial and the sheet electron beam. This model is verified using the CST simulations. This paper can pave the way for developing brand new metamaterial-based vacuum electron devices with a sheet electron beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel small tunable periodic cusped magnet (NSTPCM) system is proposed for the purpose of realizing low voltage, big current sheet electron beam propagation in a long distance in engineering, which is composed of a series of position-fixed magnet blocks in alignment and freely sliding staggered pole pieces. This kind of NSTPCM not only generates higher magnetic field in the axial direction but also realizes more convenient adjustment of magnetic field in the transverse direction. This NSTPCM system has been successfully applied in a Ka-band sheet electron beam staggered double vane traveling wave tube. The tested sheet beam transmission efficiency is $>93$ % in a 112.7-mm-length slow-wave structure under the condition of beam voltage 24.3 kV and beam current 0.8 A. Moreover, the measured output power is $>75$ W in the range from 33 to 37.5 GHz, and the maximum output power is 128 W at 34 GHz. This paper provides the foundation for the development of sheet electron beam vacuum devices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To improve the output power and electron efficiency and broaden the operating bandwidth, the three-gap extended output cavity was used in the relativistic klystron to replace the single-gap output cavity. The high-frequency characteristics of the three-gap extended cavity were studied. The electron load conductance was derived and corrected based on the theory of relativity, by which a more accurate relation of electron load conductance versus transmit angle can be obtained. The characteristic impedance is three times bigger than that of the single-gap cavity under the case of the $2\pi $ mode, which can improve the M^{2}(R/Q) and the beam–wave interaction efficiency. The model of sheet beam klystron (SBK) is comprised of three-gap input cavity, two-gap first idler, three-gap second idler cavity, and three-gap output cavity. The 3-D particle-in-cell simulation results show that for a 500 kV, 1 kA, 40.134 GHz, and 20 W input power, the SBK is capable of generating an output power higher than 142 MW with the gain of 68.5 dB, maximum interaction efficiency of 28.4%, and 3-dB bandwidth of 240 MHz. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a wideband 220-GHz sheet-beam traveling-wave tube (TWT) based on staggered double vane slow-wave structure (SWS) is investigated. A novel method of loading the attenuator into the SWS for suppressing backward wave oscillation is proposed. In addition, a novel focusing electrode of the sheet beam gun is carried out in this paper, which is a whole structure but divided into two parts artificially, one is used to compress the electron beam in $X$ -direction and the other is used to compress the electron beam in $Y$ -direction. In addition, a novel anode is redesigned to reduce the defocusing effect caused by the equipotential surfaces. A nonuniform periodically cusped magnet is used for focusing the sheet electron beam, which is predicted to exhibit 100% beam transmission efficiency in a 75-mm length drift tube. The high-frequency characteristics of the SWS and the beam-wave interaction are also studied. The results reveal that the designed TWT is expected to generate over 78.125-W average power at 214 GHz, and the 3-dB bandwidth is 31.5 GHz, ranging from 203 to 234.5 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A new kind of radial convergent sheet beam electron optical system, which can be used in low voltage Ka-band radial electron devices, is studied in this paper, including the beam production, transmission, and focus. A novel radial high perveance electron gun is proposed, and its volt-ampere characteristics are obtained by means of simulation. The focusing system using permanent magnet rings is put forward, by which a radial uniform magnetic field can be obtained. With the electron gun and focusing system, a 1600 V, 8 A, and 0.04-mm thickness radial convergent sheet beam was produced, and the simulation result shown that it can pass through a 16-mm \(\times 0.06\) -mm radial channel 100%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is attractive to use sheet beam vacuum devices to generate high frequency, high-power microwave radiation. In this paper, we present the numerical and experimental studies of a high-power Ka-band sheet electron beam backward wave oscillator (BWO), in which the double-grating rectangular waveguide is used as the slow wave structure (SWS) for its thermal and mechanical robustness. The fundamental mode of this kind of SWS is an antisymmetric mode which has an antisymmetric longitudinal field distribution and will nonsynchronously interact with the electron beam on two sides of the electron channel along the vertical direction. We put forward a method to overcome this trouble in this paper. To drive this BWO, a high-power sheet beam is used with a cross section of 30 mm $\times\,$ 1 mm. A thin graphite cathode is used for its superiority in producing a high current, high-quality electron beam. For an experimental electron beam of 141 kV and 1668 A, the output power of over 46.8 MW at 31.68 GHz is obtained, which corresponds to a beam–wave interaction efficiency of 19.9%. Compared with the conventional hollow beam BWO and the single-grating rectangular waveguide sheet beam BWO, the double-grating sheet beam BWOs efficiency is higher, which indicates that the double-grating sheet beam device is promising for producing millimeter wave radiation with high power and high efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A novel slow wave structure (SWS) named angular log-periodic meander-line is proposed for a radial traveling wave tube (TWT). In this paper, a 30 log-periods microstrip angular log-periodic meander-line SWS is studied. The dispersion of this kind of SWS is weak, which shows that it can work in a wide operating bandwidth. The more important advantage is that the operating voltage is much lower than that of the conventional TWT at the same operating frequency and the geometrical dimension is also much smaller than that of the conventional TWT. The beam–wave interaction of the angular log-periodic meander-line TWT is calculated using the particle-in-cell method. When the operating voltage is 1624 V, this kind of TWT can give 156.5-W output power at 35 GHz, the gain is 21.9 dB, and the electron efficiency is \sim17.7\%. With this kind of TWT as mentioned, the concept of radial integrated angular log-periodic meander-line TWT is proposed, which can provide a new way to obtain higher output power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The sheet beam vacuum electron device is an attractive choice for generating high-power high-frequency microwave radiation. A millimeter-wave sheet beam backward wave oscillator (BWO) is presented in this paper. The rectangular waveguide grating structure is used as its slow wave structure. The BWO is driven by a sheet beam with a cross-sectional area of 30 mm \times 1 mm which is generated by a thin cathode. For a beam voltage of 167 kV and a beam current of 1.4 kA, the output power is 40 MW at 36.6 GHz. The beam–wave interaction efficiency is about 17%, which is higher than that of conventional hollow beam BWO. It is clear from the results presented in this paper that the sheet beam device is promising for producing high-efficiency high-power millimeter-wave radiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attenuator supporting meander-line (ASML) slow wave structure (SWS) is proposed for a Ka-band traveling wave tube (TWT) and studied by simulations and experiments. The ASML SWS simplifies the fabrication and assembly process of traditional planar metal meander-lines (MLs) structures, by employing an attenuator to support the ML on the bottom of the enclosure rather than welding them together on the sides. To reduce the surface roughness of the molybdenum ML caused by laser cutting, the ML is coated by a thin copper film by magnetron sputtering. The measured S11 of the ML is below −20 dB and S21 varies around −8 dB to −12 dB without the attenuator, while below −40 dB with the attenuator. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation results show that with a 4.4-kV, 200-mA sheet electron beam, a maximum output power of 126 W is obtained at 38 GHz, corresponding to a gain of 24.1 dB and an electronic efficiency of 14.3%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]