Experimental Investigation of an Electron-Optical System for Terahertz Traveling-Wave Tubes.

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]