Development of Mode Conversion Waveguides at KIT

The development of mode conversion waveguides (launchers) for high power gyrotrons has gone through three stages at KIT. Formerly, harmonically deformed launchers have been used in the series gyrotrons developed for the stellarator W7-X. In 2009, a numerical method for the analysis and synthesis of mirror-line launchers was developed at KIT. Such a launcher with adapted mode-converting mirrors for a 2 MW TE34,19- mode, 170GHz coaxial-cavity gyrotron has been designed and tested, and also a mirror-line launcher for the 1MW EU ITER gyrotron has been designed. Recently, based on the Helmholtz-Kirchhoff integral theorem, a novel numerical method for the synthesis of hybrid-type gyrotron launchers has been developed. As an example, TE32,9 mode launchers operating at 170GHz that have been designed using the three different methods are being compared.