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In recent years, several calibration-independent transmission/reflection methods have been developed to determine the complex permittivity of liquid materials. However, these methods experience their own respective defects, such as the requirement of multi measurement cells, or the presence of air gap effect. To eliminate these drawbacks, a fast calibration-independent method is proposed in this paper. There are two main advantages of the present method over those in the literature. First, only one measurement cell is required. The cell is measured when it is empty and when it is filled with liquid. This avoids the air gap effect in the approach, in which the structure with two reference ports connected with each other is needed to be measured. Second, it eliminates the effects of uncalibrated coaxial cables, adaptors, and plug sections; systematic errors caused by the experimental setup are avoided by the wave cascading matrix manipulations. Using this method, three dielectric reference liquids, i.e., ethanol, ethanediol, and pure water, and low-loss transformer oil are measured over a wide frequency range to validate the proposed method. Their accuracy is assessed by comparing the results with those obtained from the other well known techniques. It is demonstrated that this proposed method can be used as a robust approach for fast complex permittivity determination of liquid materials.

This paper presents a relativistic coaxial overmoded surface wave oscillator (SWO) working at the terahertz band in the double-ring metamaterial slow wave structure (SWS). A relativistic electron beam passes through the SWS between the inner and outer rings. A coaxial overmoded SWS made up of metal metamaterial is designed to generate the high-power terahertz wave by increasing the beam-wave interaction efficiency and enlarging the transverse size of the terahertz device. It consists of double rings periodically arrayed along the z-direction, and a coaxial conductor with a radius of 2.4 mm. By its dispersive relation the proposed device is studied, from which we choose the 0.14 THz as the operating frequency of the device. Then the parameters of the geometric structure and the electron beam are optimized; the transitional section for extracting the terahertz signal is designed of the largest propagation coefficient. Particle simulation code UNIPIC is employed to verify the initial expectation and potential advantages. When the beam voltage and current are increasing, the operating frequency of the device remains almost constant, and this is the typical characteristic of the SWO. Particle simulation results show that the coaxial inner conductor has a stable operating mode of double-ring metamaterial SWS and can increase the beam-wave interaction efficiency of the SWO at the terahertz band. For a guiding magnetic field of 2.0 T, with the electron beam of 600 kV and a current of 1.0 kA, a 0.141 THz wave output power of 316.8 MW is obtained.

We investigate the bubble motion in transformer oil under a typical non-uniform electric field. Based on the principle of virtual work, an analytical equation is derived for the electric force putting on the bubbles. The bubble's visualized motion graphics are then obtained by using the finite-element method, which utilizes Comsol Multiphysics software. The effects of bubble radius and release position on the motion trajectory are studied. It is found that, under the non-uniform electric field, the bubbles have a long residence time between the electrodes. This accordingly can lead to a higher probability of forming a bubble-bridge along the bubble motion trajectory. The bubbles with a particular radius or release position are easier to form bubble-bridge between the electrodes. They can increase the chance of liquid breakdown.

The remaining challenges, confronting high-power microwave (HPM) sources and pulsed power generators, stimulate the developments of robust relativistic electron beam sources. This paper presents a carbon fibre cathode which is tested in a single pulsed power generator. The distribution and the development of cathode plasma are observed by time-and-space resolved diagnostics, and the uniformity of electron beam density is checked by taking x-ray images. A quasistationary behaviour of cathode plasma expansion is observed. It is found that the uniformity of the extracted electron beam is satisfactory in spite of individual plasma jets on the cathode surface. These results show that carbon fibre cathodes can provide a positive prospect for developing a high-quality electron beam.