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AT EXTREMES

Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

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Review article

Research progresses on Cherenkov and transit-time high-power microwave

sources at NUDT
Jiande Zhang, Xingjun Ge*, Jun Zhang, Juntao He, Yuwei Fan, Zhiqiang Li, Zhenxing Jin,
Liang Gao, Junpu Ling, Zumin Qi
Laboratory of High Power Microwave Technology, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China
Received 3 November 2015; revised 29 March 2016; accepted 29 March 2016
Available online 11 April 2016

Abstract

Research progresses on Cherenkov and transit-time high-power microwave (HPM) sources in National University of Defense Technology
(NUDT) of China are presented. The research issues are focused on the following aspects. The pulse-shortening phenomenon in O-type Cer-
enkov HPM devices is suppressed. The compact coaxial relativistic backward-wave oscillators (RBWOs) at low bands are developed. The power
efficiency in M-Type HPM tubes without guiding magnetic field increased. The power capacities and power efficiencies in the triaxial klystron
amplifier (TKA) and relativistic transit-time oscillator (TTO) at higher frequencies increased. In experiments, some exciting results were ob-
tained. The X-band source generated 2 GW microwave power with a pulse duration of 110 ns in 30 Hz repetition mode. Both L- and P-band
compact RBWOs generated over 2 GW microwave power with a power efficiency of over 30%. There is approximately a 75% decline of the
volume compared with that of conventional RBWO under the same power capacity conditions. A 1.755 GHz MILO produced 3.1 GW mi-
crowave power with power efficiency of 10.4%. A 9.37 GHz TKA produced the 240 MW microwave power with the gain of 34 dB. A 14.3 GHz
TTO produced 1 GW microwave power with power efficiency of 20%.
Copyright © 2016 Science and Technology Information Center, China Academy of Engineering Physics. Production and hosting by Elsevier
B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

PACS Codes: 03.50.De; 07.05.Fb

Keywords: High-power microwave (HPM); Long-pulse O-type Cerenkov source; Magnetically insulated line oscillator (MILO); Coaxial relativistic backward-
wave oscillator (RBWO); Triaxial klystron amplifier (TKA); Transit-time oscillator (TTO)

1. Introduction The relativistic backward-wave oscillators (RBWO) using

the Cerenkov mechanism is one of the most promising HPM
High-power microwave (HPM) has emerged in recent years sources due to its high output power, high power efficiency
as a new technology allowing new application and offering and high repetition operations. In S- and X-band, RBWOs
innovative approaches to existing applications. HPM sources, have achieved output power of 3e5 GW [1], efficiency of
transforming the energy of electron beams into microwaves, 20e30% and repetition rate of 100 Hz [2e5]. However,
are the key components in the HPM system. Recently, because of the pulse shortening phenomenon, pulse duration
considerable attention has been paid to the development of of RBWOs usually cannot exceed 20e30 ns [6e10]. Natu-
HPM sources. rally, the possible reasons for this phenomenon attract great
attentions in the HPM field. Typically, S.D. Polevin et al. in
Russia have studied Spontaneous pulse shortening occurring in
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (X.J. Ge).
an S-band resonant RBWO at gigawatt power levels [11].
Peer review under responsibility of Science and Technology Information Termination of microwave output is caused mainly by emis-
Center, China Academy of Engineering Physics. sion of charged particles from the plasma forming at the slow-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mre.2016.04.001
2468-080X/Copyright © 2016 Science and Technology Information Center, China Academy of Engineering Physics. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This
is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
164 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

wave structure (SWS) surface under the action of the intense

RF field. Treating the SWS surface by low-energy high-cur-
rent electron beam (LEHCEB) allowed production of 3 GW,
90 ns microwave pulses with energy of ~250 J. To further
increase the beam-wave interaction efficiency and output
power attract great attentions in the HPM field, too. Typically,
R.Z. Xiao et al. at Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology
have presented a klystronlike RBWO with a dual-cavity
extractor as shown in Fig. 1 [12]. This device combines the
advantages of transition radiation with Cerenkov radiation, has
the characteristics of high efficiency, high power capacity, and
stable frequency, and is a potential device for power
combining. The particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation results reveal
that microwaves with power of 10 GW, frequency of 4.3 GHz
are generated, and conversion efficiency is 48% when diode Fig. 2. Schematic of the klystron-like RBWO with an input cavity (1-input
voltage is 1.2 MV and beam current 17.3 kA. Furthermore, cavity, 2-pre-modulation cavity, 3-resonant reflector, 4-SWS1, 5-modulation
cavity, 6-SWS2, 7-dual-cavity extractor).
R.Z. Xiao et al. at Nuclear Technology have researched the
mechanism of phase control in a klystron-like BWO by an
input cavity as shown in Fig. 2 [13]. Since the microwave field efficiency of 7% is generated under the voltage of 475 kV in
is weak during the early time of starting oscillation, it is easy the experiment [15]. D. Wang et al. at China Academy of
to be induced, and a small input signal is sufficient to control Engineering Physics have studied an L-band double ladder
the phase of output microwave. In simulation, an input signal cathode MILO as shown in Fig. 3 [24]. The microwave with
with 100 kW power and 4.21 GHz frequency can control the output power of 3.57 GW, frequency of 1.23 GHz, pulse
phase of 5 GW output microwave with relative phase differ- duration of 46 ns and efficiency of 8% is generated under the
ence less than 6% when the diode voltage is 760 kV, and beam voltage of 740 kV and the current of 61 kA in the experiment.
current is 9.8 kA, corresponding to a power ratio of output The relativistic klystron amplifier (RKA) transfers kinetic
microwave to input signal of 47 dB. energy of relativistic electron beam to HPM based on the
The magnetically insulated line oscillator (MILO) is one of principle of velocity modulation. RKA is a promising candi-
the M-type devices. The advantages of the MILO include its date for spatial coherent combining of HPM and has been
high power output, stable operation, self-magnetic insulation, investigated intensively during the past decades all over the
and compact configuration. The drawbacks of the MILO are world. Theoretical studies about RKA were carried out by
its lower efficiencies and its lack of tunability. The MILO Friedman et al. at the Naval Research Laboratory since 1970s,
covers the frequency from L-band, S-band, C-band, and X- and typical experimental results were reported for the first
band to Ku-band [14e24]. Increasing the output power, pulse time in 1985. A microwave with peak power of 6 GW and
duration, power conversion efficiency, and repetitive fre- pulse duration of 80 ns is produced by the L-band RKA at
quency are four major development directions for the MILO. 1.3 GHz when the diode voltage and current are 1 MV and
The typical representative is the L-band hard tube MILO 35 kA, respectively [25]. To enhance power conversion effi-
designed by Sandia National Laboratory and Maxwell Labo- ciency and pulse duration, Friedman proposed a new type
ratory in the USA [14]. The microwave with output power of RKA with inductively loaded wide gaps [26], which was
2 GW, frequency of 1.2 GHz, pulse duration of 175 ns and demonstrated to be capable of generating 2.85 GW L-band
HPM with efficiency of about 60% in the experiment.
Furthermore, the triaxial klystron amplifier (TKA) is put for-
ward to realize RKA operating in high frequency bands. Re-
searches on RKA in China started in 1970s by Huang et al. at
China Academy of Engineering Physics. Typically, HPM with

Fig. 1. Structure of the klystron-like RBWO with a dual-cavity extractor. Fig. 3. The basic configuration of the L-band double ladder cathode MILO.
 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178 165

peak power of 1 GW and pulse duration of 140 ns was pro- initial experiment proved that transit-time effect could
duced by the S-band RKA in 2011 [27], and moreover generate microwave, but the power conversion efficiency was
coherent power combining of two S-and RKAs was realized only 0.2%. After decades of effort, scientists in Sandia Na-
experimentally for the first time. In addition, X-band TKAs are tional Laboratories developed a new TTO called split-cavity
investigated actively by CAEP as well as the National Uni- oscillator (SCO), whose power conversion efficiency was
versity of Defense Technology (NUDT) to pursue long pulse over 20% [34]. Since then, much progress in pursuit of higher
HPM generation. Fig. 4 displays the multi-beam TKA put output power, higher operation frequency and higher conver-
forward by China Academy of Engineering Physics, in which sion frequency has been made in both theory and experiment
the electron beam and propagation tubes are divided into 18 [35e37]. The traditional relativistic TTO usually employs the
small regions to suppress self-oscillation and leakage of TEM conducting foils to guide the intense relativistic electron beam
and TE modes. Typical experimental results are given in instead of the additional guiding magnetic field. Although this
Fig. 4(c), which demonstrates a 0.98 GW HPM generated with can certainly reduce the system's volume, weight, and energy
pulse duration of 95 ns, when the diode voltage and beam consumption, the intense relativistic electron beam easily
current are 650 kV and 4.5 kA, respectively [28]. The injection produces plasma at the conducting foils. The plasma is dele-
microwave power is 50 kW, which yields a gain of about terious to the repetitive and long pulsed operation. To solve the
43 dB. However, the multi-beam structure is fairly compli- above problems, the researchers presented the foilless TTOs,
cated, and self-oscillation is still observed in PIC simulation, e.g. the researchers from China Academy of Engineering
which requires further investigation. Physics proposed an X-band five-unit foilless TTO, which can
The relativistic transit-time oscillator (TTO) is one of the deliver 780 MW HPM at X-band [38]. Its structure and the
most promising high power microwave sources due to its microwave waveform are presented in Fig. 5. However, its
virtues such as high power, high stability, monochromatic impedance is above 100 U, which limits the input power, and
output RF signal and compact structure [29e31]. The first its guiding magnetic field is above 1 T. To lower the magnetic
TTO named monotron was proposed in 1930s [32,33]. The field and diode impedance, a coaxial foilless TTO, generating
a microwave above 2 GW in L-band, is put forward in NUDT
[39]. Due to the potential application of the Ku-band HPM in
high power radar, communication, and other fields, it is
meaningful to expand the operation band of the coaxial foil-
less TTO to Ku-band. However, the smaller size of the device
at higher band certainly will cause the problems of electron

Fig. 4. Configuration of the X-band TKA at CAEP. (a) Longitudinal, (b)

transverse structure profiles of the TKA proposed by CEAP, and (c) Wave- Fig. 5. Schematic of the X-band five-unit foilless TTO (a) and Waveform of
forms of the generated HPM and the frequency. the experiments results (b).
166 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

beam collecting, electron beam guiding, RF-field breakdown

and et al. Therefore, it becomes a focus of our future research
to solve the above problems.

2. O-type Cherenkov HPM devices

2.1. Suppression of pulse-shortening phenomenon in O-

Fig. 7. Schematic of C-band RBWOs (1-cathode, 2-cutoff neck, 3-inserter, 4-
type Cherenkov HPM devices SWSs, 5-reflector, 6-taper waveguide, 7-collector).

In this section, we report recent progress in achieving long

pulse HPMs with GW-class power level in three bands [40,41]. In order to test performance of the designed HPM sources,
In our design, special attentions are paid on two aspects. One a long-pulsed high current electron beam accelerator is built,
is to keep a large gap between anode and cathode and a far which can provide a 10e15 GW pulsed electric power on a
distance between the downstream of the SWSs and the loca- 40 U matched load with the pulse duration of 150 ns at the
tion of e-beam collector, through which the displacement of single-shot mode or 1e20 Hz repetition mode.
the cathode and collector plasmas can be negligible for pulse Firstly, experiments are carried out in S- and C-band at the
length of ~100 ns; another is to optimize the electrodynamic single-shot mode. Under the condition of the diode voltage
structure to decrease the electric field on the surface of SWSs 700 kV, beam current 7 kA and the guiding magnetic field 2 T,
while keeping a relatively high power efficiency. The the microwave power is about 1 GW and 1.2 GW in S- and C-
maximum RF electric field strength on SWS surfaces in the band, respectively. Fig. 8 shows typical experimental wave-
three designed HPM sources is under 1 MV/cm at the GW forms of C-band RBWO in single-shot mode. At such power
output power level. level, the pulse duration usually kept 100 ns stable in both
bands, and even reached over 110 ns occasionally. The
2.1.1. Design of the S- and C-band HPM sources experimental results agree very well with simulation results,
The S-band RBWO is designed based on the basic principle which suggest almost no pulse-shortening phenomenon
of resonant RBWOs with its schematic diagram shown in happening. Increasing diode voltage and beam current to about
Fig. 6. The resonant cavity is employed to enhance the power 1 MV and 10 kA, output microwave power for both sources
efficiency and to decrease the RF field. The main features are increased to about 2 GW with a little decreased pulse duration
presented as follows: (1) the resonant cavity replacing the of 90e100 ns, indicating that the pulse-shortening phenome-
cutoff neck is used to enhance the efficiency. The electron non does happen in such power level. After experiments, many
beams can achieve pre-modulation through the resonant cav- traces of arcing are found nearby the downstream end of the
ity, which is beneficial to beam-wave interaction; (2) the cut-off necks in both sources, where simulation results show
resonant cavity can completely reflect the microwave (the the RF fields are most intensive. In addition, a few spots are
TM01 mode) transmitted from the SWSs to the diode; (3) the also found nearby the iris of SWSs.
radial distance between the cathode and the resonant cavity is In order to lengthen the pulse duration, measurements in
about 5 mm, greater than 2 mm (the conventional RBWO with two aspects can be taken. One is to improve the smoothness
cutoff neck), thus avoiding electrons' scraping the cavity sur- and cleanness of SWS surfaces and the vacuum level to in-
faces and reducing the RF field. crease the breakdown threshold. Experimental results have
The schematic of the C-band RBWO is given in Fig. 7. A indicated that treating SWS surface with the LEHCEB can
smooth waveguide is inserted between the cut-off neck and the effectively increase the breakdown threshold from 1 MV/cm to
SWSs. By adjusting the length of the inserter, the phase dif- about 2.5 MV/cm. The electrochemistry polishing or me-
ference between the fundamental forward harmonic and chanical polishing are also the effective technological ap-
thee1st backward harmonic can be varied, and the power proaches. The other is to optimize the electrodynamic
efficiency can be increased compared with that of the structure structures to decrease the electric field on the surface of SWSs
without an inserter. while maintaining relative high power efficiency.
In 20 Hz repetition mode with burst duration of 5 s, the S-
band RBWO was tested with diode voltage of 850 kV and beam
current of 9 kA approximately, and the experimental results are
given in Fig. 9. The output power is around 1.8 GW with pulse
duration of 110 ns approximately, and the power efficiency is
about 24%. The good overlapped waveforms suggest that the S-
band RBWO has a stable performance in such power level.

2.1.2. Design and experimental results of the X-band HPM

sources
Fig. 6. Schematic of S-band RBWO (1-circular cathode, 2-resonant cavity, 3-
In X-band, the single-mode RBWO is excluded in our
SWS, 4-reflector, 5-guiding magnetic field, 6-taper waveguide, 7-collector). design because the maximum electric field on SWS surface in
 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178 167

Fig. 8. Experimental results of C-band RBWO in single-shot mode. (a) diode voltage and microwave power, (b) microwave and its spectrum.

Fig. 9. Experimental results of S-band RBWO in 20 Hz repetition mode. (a) diode voltage and microwave power, (b) microwave and its spectrum.

such structure exceeds 1 MV/cm with output power of over Fig. 11 shows the experimental results of the improved
1 GW. It is evitable to employ overmoded SWSs with the D/ device in 30 Hz repetition mode with diode voltage of 730 kV,
l > 1. Our investigations show that overmoded SWSs can beam current of 9.8 kA, and guiding magnetic field of 0.7 T.
effectively reduce the RF field on SWS surface, but the Through radiation power integrated at the far field, the
reduction is not as notable as the increase of D/l due to the measured output power is 2 GW with power efficiency of
change of field distribution. Moreover, too large D/l will result 28%, and pulse duration is 116 ns on average. The microwave
in much more difficulties in mode-selection. Therefore, it is spectrum measured in the experiments agrees well with that
suggest that the increase of D/l should be moderate. observed in the PIC simulation. Currently, we believe that the
An X-band HPM source using overmoded SWSs with D/ explosive emissions plasma formed on the surface of SWSs
l z 3 is proposed and schematically shown in Fig. 10. The due to RF breakdown is the predominant cause of pulse
electrodynamic structure of two SWS sections separated by a shortening in RBWOs, and in our design, the measures taken
drift tube is employed to improve beam-wave power efficiency is effective to suppress the pulse shortening phenomenon.
through adjusting the length of the drift tube. A resonant
cavity is used at the upstream of the first SWS section to 2.2. Development of the compact coaxial RBWO at low
reflect generated microwave going to the diode region. The bands
design of the device is described in detail in Ref. 44. Both the
power capacity and output mode purity of an X-band over- Since the first RBWO was developed in 1970, there have
moded RBWO are substantially improved through optimizing been many reports on RBWOs operating in the high frequency
the profile of the SWSs and geometric parameters of the whole region (S-band, X-band, and millimeter wave), but discussions
electrodynamic structures. on low operation band (L- and P-bands) are scanty. The main
reason is that the dimension of the low operation band RBWO
is so large that it is difficult to manipulate in experiments. It
should be mentioned that the HPM sources with frequency less
than 2 GHz still have very important applications in many
fields.
In this section, we report recent progress in compact L- and
P-band RBWOs [42e46]. In our design, special attentions are
paid on two aspects. One is to replace the hollow SWS for the
coaxial SWS; another is to introduce a coaxial extractor at the
end of the SWS. The quasi transverse electromagnetic (quasi-
Fig. 10. Schematic of X-band HPM source with overmoded SWSs (1-cathode, TEM) mode has no cutoff frequency in the coaxial SWS.
2-anode, 3-cavity, 4-SWS section 1, 5-drift tube, 6-SWS section 2, 7- Thus, the radius of the coaxial SWS becomes significantly
collector). smaller than that of the hollow SWS. Moreover, the
168 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

Fig. 11. Experimental results of X-band HPM source in 30 Hz repetition mode. (a) diode voltage, beam current and microwave power, (b) microwave and its
spectrum.

peculiarities of the coaxial SWS are that the introduction of Furthermore, the mechanism and realization of a band-agile
the inner-conductor can increase the space-charge limiting coaxial RBWO are presented. The operation frequency tuning
current, the interaction efficiency, and the coupling impedance can be easily achieved by merely altering the inner-conductor
is larger than that in the hollow SWS. Besides, the coaxial length. The key effects of the inner-conductor length
extractor at the end of the SWS is used to reduce the length contributing to the mechanical frequency tunability are
and increase the efficiency. investigated theoretically and experimentally.
As shown in Fig. 14, there is a specific inner-conductor
2.2.1. Compact L-band coaxial RBWO length (L0) where operation frequency jumps from one band
The schematic of the compact L-band coaxial RBWO is to another band. When the inner-conductor length is larger than
given in Fig. 12 [42e44]. Compared with conventional L0, the operation mode is mainly the quasi-TEM mode, which
RBWOs, there are the coaxial SWS and the coaxial extractor is the basic mode of coaxial SWSs. Fig. 15(a) shows the
structure at the end of the SWS section. The coaxial SWS and electrical field distribution of the p mode of the quasi-TEM
the coaxial extractor are designed to reduce the size, realize mode. Its resonance frequency is 1.68 GHz, which belongs to
the mode selection, and increase the efficiency of the device. L-band. When the inner-conductor length is smaller than L0, the
In addition, it possesses the characteristics of frequency tun- operation mode is mainly the TM01 mode, which is the basic
ing. It shows that the resonance frequency decreases obviously mode of hollow SWSs. Fig. 15(b) shows the electrical field
with the increase of the inner-conductor radius. After distribution of the p mode of the TM01 mode, whose resonant
removing the inner-conductor, its resonance frequency belongs frequency belonging to S-band is 2.43 GHz. In addition, the
to the S-band. operation frequency is tunable within each operation band.
The experiment is carried out on a high-current electron During simulation, the L-band microwave with frequency
beam accelerator capable of producing a 50 ns duration of 1.61 GHz is radiated when the inner-conductor length is
electron beam repetitively in the voltage range of 0.5e1 MV. 39 cm. Meanwhile, the S-band microwave with frequency of
When the diode voltage is 890 kV, the current is 7.7 kA, and 2.32 GHz is radiated when the inner-conductor length is 5 cm.
the guiding magnetic field is 0.93 T, the radiated microwave The frequency adjustment bandwidths of L- and S-band are
with power of 2.1 GW and pulse duration of 41 ns is gener- about 8.5% and 2%, respectively. Moreover, the online me-
ated. Its efficiency is 31% and its main mode is TM01 mode. chanical tunability process is described in detail in Ref. 45. In
Fig. 13 gives the microwave signal and the corresponding fast the initial experiment, the generated microwave frequency
Fourier transform. Obviously, it can be seen that the generated remains approximately 1.59 GHz or 2.35 GHz when the inner-
microwave frequency remains approximately 1.61 GHz. conductor lengths are 39 cm or 5 cm. In brief, this technical
Compared with the conventional RBWO (F10
70 cm), the route of the band-agile coaxial RBWO is feasible and provides
volume of the compact L-band coaxial RBWO a guide to design other types of band-agile HPM sources.
(F5.5
35 cm) decreases by 72.5%.
2.2.2. Compact P-band coaxial RBWO
The schematic of the compact P-band coaxial RBWO is
given in Fig. 16 [46]. Compared with the L-band coaxial
RBWO, there are only three periods SWS with both inner and
outer conductor ripples. The double-corrugation SWS can
reduce the period length of coaxial SWS for the same oper-
ating frequency of the RBWO and shorten the saturation time
of the microwave signal. The length of the inner-conductor can
be used to adjust the optimal phase difference between the
forward fundamental harmonic and thee1st order harmonic.
The coaxial extractor can also be used as a reflector to adjust
the optimal ratio of the harmonic amplitudes and improve the
Fig. 12. Schematic of the compact L-band coaxial RBWO. axial distribution of a high-frequency field.
 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178 169

Fig. 13. Experimental results of the compact L-band coaxial RBWO. (a) waveforms of voltage, beam current and microwave, (b) radiated microwave and its
spectrum.

Fig. 14. Schematic of the band-agile coaxial RBWO (1-circular cathode, 2-

cutoff neck, 3-outer SWSs, 4-inner-conductor, 5-coaxial extractor, and 6-
output waveguide).

Typical experimental results under the condition of diode

voltage of 582 kV, current of 8 kA, and guiding magnetic field
of 0.9 T are exhibited in Fig. 17. It can be seen that the
generated microwave frequency is approximately 897 MHz.
The microwave power is measured to be 1.5 GW, and the pulse
duration is about 40 ns, similar to the simulation results of
42 ns. Since the beam power was about 4.7 GW, the efficiency
was approximately 32%. There is approximately a 74%
decline of the volume compared with that of conventional
RBWO under the same power capacity conditions.

3. Enhancement of the power efficiency in MILO Fig. 15. Electric field distribution. (a) p mode of the quasi-TEM wave in the
SWSs with the inner-conductor, (b) p mode of the TM01 wave in the SWSs
without the inner-conductor.
In our laboratory, the investigations of MILO are mainly
focused on improving power efficiency in L-, S- and C-band
[17e19,47]. The typical structure of improved L-band MILO region when the MILO operates at several GW level outputs.
is shown in Fig. 18. A novel beam dump, a one-cavity RF At 1.755 GHz, the L band MILO radiates microwave power of
choke section and a field shaper cathode are introduced into above 3.1 GW when the diode voltage is 550 kV and the
the improved L-band MILO. Through the axially moving of current is 54 kA. The pulse duration is above 40 ns, and the
the beam dump disk, the axial gap width between the down- power efficiency is about 10.4%.
stream end of the cathode and the beam disk can be adjusted In order to further improve the power efficiency of MILO, a
continuously, which can affect the load current and hence the complex MILO is presented and investigated theoretically and
dc magnetic field in the SWS. The one-cavity RF choke sec- numerically. The complex MILO composed of MILO-1 and
tion is optimized to reflect the leaking RF power toward the MILO-2 is shown in Fig. 19. The MILO-1 and MILO-2 stand
diode and reduce the length of SWSs. A field shaper cathode is in the red solid rectangle and in the red dash rectangle,
proposed for avoiding the cathode flares in the triple point respectively. The emission regions stand in the dotted lines on
170 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

difference between the inner and the outer radii. Keeping other
parameters unchanged while changing the inner radius of the
SWS vanes can change the microwave frequency. However,
the inner radius of the SWS vanes also affects the electro-
magnetic field boundary condition, the impedance, and the
quality factor of the device at the same time. Consequently, the
tuning bandwidth is very small. On the other hand, changing
the outer radius of the SWS vanes can acquire a great tuning
bandwidth while the influence on the MILO operation is very
small. In conclusion, our scheme is to change the outer radius
of the SWS vanes to tune the microwave frequency. Fig. 20 is
Fig. 16. Schematic of the compact P-band coaxial RBWO.
the schematic of the tunable MILO. The online mechanical
tunability process is described in detail in Ref. [49].
the surfaces of the cathode-1 and cathode-2. The basic prin- When the MILO is driven by the 430 kV, 40.6 kA electron
ciple of the complex MILO is described in Ref. [48]. In beams, HPM is generated with power of 3.0 GW and fre-
simulation, the microwave powers of the complex MILO, quency of 1.51 GHz, and the power efficiency is 17.2%.
MILO-1, and MILO-2 are 7.2 GW, 4.4 GW and 2.8 GW, Fig. 21 gives the frequency and normalized power versus the
respectively, when the diode voltage and the current are outer radius of the vane. It shows that the microwave fre-
620 kV and 58.4 kA, respectively. Thus, the power efficiency quency decreases monotonously when the outer radius of the
of the complex MILO is 19.9%. The microwave frequency of vane increases monotonously. Moreover, the frequency can
MILO-1 is 1.76 GHz and that of MILO-2 is 1.78 GHz, reach above 3 GHz, but then the output power is lower than
respectively. half of the output power. The 3 dB tunable frequency range
A tunable MILO is put forward and simulated. The fre- (the relative output power is above half of the peak output
quency of the MILO is co-determined by five factors: the inner power) is 2.25e0.825 GHz when the outer radius of the SWS
radius, the outer radius, the period, the thickness of the SWS vanes ranges from 77 mm to 155 mm, and the 3 dB tuning
vanes, and the radius of the cathode. Furthermore, the most bandwidth is 92%, which is sufficient for the aim of large-
decisive factor is the depth of the SWS vanes, namely, the scale tuning and high power output.

Fig. 17. Experimental results of the compact P-band coaxial RBWO. (a) waveforms of voltage, beam current and microwave, (b) radiated microwave and its
spectrum.

Fig. 18. Schematic and experimental results of the L-band MILO. (a) the scheme, (b) experimental results.
 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178 171

Fig. 19. Schematic of the complex MILO.

Fig. 21. Frequency and normalized power versus outer radius of the vanes.

The power capacity can be effectively increased by increasing

the radii of the coaxial tube and the coaxial cavities. The
enhancement of the coaxial tube can provide a large-radius
intense relativistic electron beam with high injection electric
power. However, due to the coaxial cavities are over-sized, the
designs of the cavities are significant. For the introduction of
the inner-conductor, the TEM mode and the low-order coaxial
TE mode can propagate in the coaxial tubes among the cav-
ities of the TKA, which would lead to the symmetric and
asymmetric mode competition. In this paper, an X-band TKA
with an asymmetric input cavity is presented. The isolation
method of the TEM mode leakage and suppression method of
the asymmetric mode competition are developed.
As presented in Fig. 22, an X-band TKA with an asym-
metric input cavity is designed to avoid the complicated diode
structure of the previous TKAs developed by the Naval
Research Lab (NRL), etc. To keep the axial electric field
azimuthally symmetric in the gap region, the input microwave
is divided equally into two parts by a power divider, and then
injected into a reentrant coaxial cavity by two transmission
channels, as illustrated in Fig. 23. Fig. 23 also plots the dis-
tribution of the total electric field in the input cavity obtained
by a finite-different time-domain (FDTD) software CST when
a TE10 mode, with a transient power of 1 W and a frequency of
9.375 GHz, is injected from the rectangular waveguide. The
dominant mode (TE10 mode) in the rectangular waveguide
Fig. 20. Schematic of the tunable MILO in the XeZ plane.
converts into the TEM mode in the reentrant coaxial cavity
and the coaxial TM01 mode in the gap region of the input
4. Enhancement of the power capacity and efficiency in
TKA and TTO

4.1. Enhancement of the power capacity and efficiency

in TKA at higher frequencies

The TKA is an effective scheme to amplify microwave at

high frequencies with lower power injection and achieve a
1 GW level output. The TKA can operate at single mode of
coaxial TM01 mode as long as the outer and inner radii of the
coaxial drift tube close enough to cut off the operation mode. Fig. 22. Structure of the TKA at XeZ longitudinal section.
172 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

cavity. The azimuthal uniformity (ratio of the minimum over observed in the FFT of the electric fields in the buncher cavity
the maximum) of the axial electric field in the center of the and the input cavity. The distribution of the axial electric field
gap region reaches about 92%. in the transverse section of the second gap of the buncher
Through the investigating propagation of the buncher cav- cavity is monitored, as illustrated in Fig. 25(b). An asymmetric
ity of the TKA, it can be noted that an appropriate buncher mode competition occurs in the device, and the competition
cavity for a TKA should satisfy three qualifications: 1) sup- mode in the transverse cross section appears as coaxial TM61
pression of TEM-mode leakage; 2) no self-oscillation mode. The analysis of the three cavities shows that the three-
happening; 3) a high fundamental current modulation depth gap buncher cavity has a resonant mode of coaxial TM612
of the beam after interacting with the buncher cavity. mode with a resonant frequency of 11.46 GHz, which is same
Two specially designed TEM mode reflectors with different with the frequency of the competition mode in the TKA.
Eigen frequencies are located in front of the buncher cavity
and the output cavity, respectively to suppress the TEM mode
leakage further. An appropriate TEM mode reflector for a
TKA should satisfy three qualifications: 1) effective reflection
to the TEM mode at the operation frequency; 2) little modu-
lation to the beam at the operation frequency; 3) no excitation
of the Eigen modes of the reflector by the electron beam.
Fig. 24 plots the structure and the distribution of the total
electric field and the axial electric field at the operation fre-
quency in the reflector when injecting a TEM mode with
1 MW power from the right port. There is no obvious mi-
crowave leakage from the left port and the axial electric field
is nearly zero at the beam radial position.
In Fig. 25(a), the output microwave of the TKA is obtained
by a three dimensional (3-D) PIC code when the frequency
and the total power of the input microwave are 9.375 GHz and
80 kW, respectively. In the beginning, the TKA can amplify
the input microwave normally, while a pulse shortening hap-
pens at time of 70 ns. A frequency component of 11.46 GHz is Fig. 24. Structure and the electric field distribution of the TEM mode reflector.
(a) total electric field; (b) axial electric field.

Fig. 23. Structure and total electric field distribution of the asymmetric input cavity.
 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178 173

Fig. 25. Output power of the TKA (a) and the distribution of the axial electric field in the transverse section of the second gap of the buncher cavity (b).

The analysis indicates that the asymmetric mode is excited experiment waveform of the diode voltage is also plotted in
and amplified in the buncher cavity for the coaxial waveguide Fig. 29. Considering the loss of the input power in the
cannot cut off the corresponding asymmetric TE mode. A experiment, the input power is reduced to 15 kW in simula-
feasible suppression method of the asymmetric mode tion. The experiment pulse duration achieves 100 ns, which
competition is to restrain the propagation of the coaxial TE61 approaches to the simulation result. It can be noted that there
mode in the coaxial waveguide by a cavity reflector. To avoid is no asymmetric mode competition resulting in the pulse
an extra self-oscillation introduced by the resonant modes of shortening. Therefore, the asymmetric mode competition is
the reflectors, the reflector in front of the buncher cavity effectively suppressed in the TKA with an asymmetric input
should be optimized for high reflection coefficients both to the cavity. The differences at the up and down edges mainly result
TEM mode and the coaxial TE61 mode. The reflection coef- from that the quality factors of the cavities in the experiment
ficient to the coaxial TE61 mode at the competition frequency are lower than those in the simulation. Fig. 30 presents the
of the reflector achieves 95.7%. Meanwhile, the reflection radiation microwaves and the corresponding FFT result. The
coefficient to the TEM mode at the operation frequency frequency of the generated microwave is 9.37 GHz, which is
maintains over 99%, as shown in Fig. 26. exactly identical to the frequency of the input microwave.
As presented in Fig. 27, there is no pulse shortening on the
output power of the TKA with the coaxial TE61 mode re- 4.2. Enhancement of the power capacity and efficiency
flectors. The beam voltage and current are 570 kV and 6.5 kA, in TTO at higher frequencies
respectively. The frequency and power of the input microwave
are 9.375 GHz and 100 kW, respectively. The output power of In this paper, a novel coaxial TTO with low guiding mag-
the TKA achieve about 1 GW, there are no pulse shortening on netic field is proposed. The schematic of the Ku-band coaxial
the device. The gain and efficiency are about 40 dB and 28%. TTO is presented in Fig. 31. The device mainly consists of six
The backward-flowing power in the coaxial waveguide of parts, which are the annular cathode, coaxial TM02 mode
the improved TKA is observed, as illustrated in Fig. 28. The resonant reflector, three-cavity buncher, dual-cavity extractor,
power leakage to the input cavity from the coaxial waveguide novel electron collector, and coaxial output waveguide,
is lower than 50 kW, which is less than 0.35% of the 140 MW respectively. The buncher and extractor are separated by the
backward-flowing powers in the buncher cavity. Furthermore, drift-tube to obtain efficient beam-wave interaction. The co-
the power leakage from the output to the buncher cavity is axial TM02 mode resonant reflector with low surface electric
lower than 2.5 MW, which is less than 0.2% of the 1.23 GW field is used to prevent the microwave from propagating into
backward-flowing powers in the output cavity. the diode region and pre-modulate the electron beam. When
The designed TKA is demonstrated by the experiment. The the device operates, the annular electron beam emitted by the
diode voltage and beam current are about 570 kV and 6.3 kA, cathode transmits axially due to the guiding of the external
respectively [50]. The amplitude of the guiding magnetic field magnetic field. The electron beam passes through the buncher
is about 1 T. The input microwave to the TKA is generated by and obtains velocity modulation. After a given-distance drift
a klystron amplifier which can operate at the frequencies range tube, the velocity modulation of the electron beam transfers
from 9.355 GHz to 9.395 GHz. The cold test demonstrates that into density modulation. Then, the bunched electrons interact
the loss of the input microwave reaches over 7 dB in the input with the electric field in the extractor and high power micro-
cavity. Namely the power of the microwave modulating the wave is stimulated. Finally, the beam is dumped onto the
beam is actually lower than 20% of the input power. The electron collector and the Ku-band HPM are extracted by the
typical experimental results are obtained when the power and coaxial output waveguide.
frequency of the input microwave are about 90 kW and One virtue of the proposed device is that with the coaxial
9.37 GHz, respectively, as presented in Fig. 29. The power of inner conductor and the volume wave as operation mode, this
the radiation microwave is ~240 MW and the gain is about novel device has high power capacity. The operation mode of
34 dB. The output microwave simulated according the our device is TM01 mode. One special feature of the coaxial
174 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

Fig. 26. The reflection coefficient of the mode reflector to the coaxial TE61 mode (a) and the TEM mode (b).

TM01 mode is that by loading the resonant cavities on both has lower impedance. With lower impedance, this device can
of the coaxial inner and outer conductors instead on only one have a lower voltage. For example, if for the traditional device
of them and optimizing their depths, the strongest axial (~100 U), its voltage is 700 kV, with the same input electric
electric field can be located in the middle of the cavities, power, for our device (~50 U), the input voltage is only
which is defined as quasi body wave. Fig. 32 shows the 500 kV. Lower guiding magnetic field can decrease its power
electric distribution of the TM01 mode in the cavities loaded demand of the magnetic field coils, and make the HPM system
on both surfaces of the conductors and only on the outer one. more compact.
Compared with the surface wave, volume wave can effec- The third virtue of the device is that it employs a coaxial
tively lower the surface field. Besides, by increasing all TM02 mode resonant reflector. Fig. 33 shows the electrical
radial dimensions of the device at the same increment, the field distribution in the novel reflector at the desired frequency.
working frequency keeps unchanged. This means we can As shown in the figure, the position of the maximum electric
further improve the power capacity with larger cross-section field is close to the electron transmission line at r ¼ 4.3 cm
area. instead of the corner wall, as is the case in the traditional one,
Another virtue of the device is that with the inner- which could increase the power handling capacity and pre-
conductor, it can have less space charge effects. This means modulation of the electron beam. Moreover, by analyzing
it has the merits of larger space-charge limiting current and
lower guiding magnetic field. Larger space-charge can make it

Fig. 28. Calculated backward-flowing power in the coaxial waveguide of the

Fig. 27. The output power of the designed TKA. designed TKA.
 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178 175

Fig. 32. Electric field distribution for coaxial TM01 mode in (a) cavity only
loaded on the outer conductor and (b) cavities loaded on both of the coaxial
inner and outer conductors.

Fig. 29. Typical experimental waveforms: (a) diode voltage; (b) microwave
power.

Fig. 33. Electric field distribution of the coaxial TM02 mode in the reflector.

from the extractor and beam interception occurs over an in-

clined plane, which has larger dump area compared with a
vertical plane for the traditional collector (shown in Fig. 34).
Larger dump area means less electron density. This can lower
Fig. 30. Typical experimental microwave and its spectrum. the probabilities of the primary or secondary reflection elec-
tron and plasma formation, which easily cause asymmetric
mode competition. In addition, there is an electron absorption
the external Q-factor of the buncher, we find that its value
cavity together with the electron dump. It plays an important
increase from 42 to 49, after introducing the novel reflector,
role in absorbing the reflection electrons and preventing them
which would be more suitable for beam-wave interaction.
from propagating to the extractor region. Hence, the novel
Moreover, the proposed device employs a novel electron
collector is in favor of suppressing the asymmetric competi-
collector instead the tradition one. The novel collector is away
tion mode.
To investigate the proposed Ku-band TTO with low guiding
magnetic field and validate its performance, we carried out a

Fig. 31. Schematic of the proposed Ku-band coaxial TTO. Fig. 34. Schematic of the traditional collector.
176 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178

Fig. 35. Simulation results of the Ku-band coaxial TTO. (a) output power versus time, (b): frequency spectrum.

Fig. 36. Experimental results of the Ku-band coaxial TTO. (a) waveforms of microwaves, (b) radiated microwave and its spectrum.

two-and-one-half-dimensional (2.5 D) PIC simulation on the The S-band source generates 1.8 GW power with pulse
proposed device, when the diode voltage is about 420 kV, the duration of 110 ns in 20 Hz repetition mode. The X-band
diode current is about 8.3 kA and the guiding magnetic field is source generates 2 GW microwave power with pulse
about 0.7 T Fig. 35 shows the output microwave power versus duration of 110 ns in 30 Hz repetition mode. It is sug-
time and the frequency spectrum. From the figures, we can see gested that explosive emissions plasma formed on the
that with diode voltage of 420 kV, diode current of 8.3 kA and surface of SWSs due to RF breakdown are the crucial
the guiding magnetic field of 0.7 T, the output power is 1 GW, factor limiting pulse duration. In addition, there are a
and the microwave frequency is 14.25 GHz. coaxial SWS and a coaxial extractor in the compact
The proposed Ku-band TTO with the designed parameters RBWO, which are designed to reduce the size and in-
derived above was fabricated. For investigating and verifying crease the efficiency. At L-band, a 2.1 GW microwave is
its performance, a primary experiment on the Ku-band device obtained and the efficiency is 31%. At P-band, a 1.5 GW
guided by the magnetic field was performed at an intense microwave is obtained and the efficiency is 32%. There is
relativistic electron beam accelerator, which is capable of approximately a 75% decline of the volume compared
producing a 50 ns duration electron beam in the voltage range with that of conventional RBWO under the same power
of 0.3e1 MV. When the diode voltage, diode current, and capacity conditions.
guiding magnetic field are 500 kV, 10 kA, and 0.7 T, respec- (2) Investigations on the MILO are focused on the enhance-
tively; the typical wave forms of the diode voltage, beam ment of the power efficiency. At 1.755 GHz, a microwave
current, and the radiation microwave are shown in Fig. 36(a). with power of 3.1 GW and efficiency of 10.4% is obtained.
The integrated power is 1 GW, corresponding to the conver- To further improve the power efficiency of MILO, a
sion efficiency of 20%. The received microwave signal with its complex MILO is presented. In simulation, the power
FFT is given by Fig. 36(b). The main frequency 14.3 GHz was efficiency of the complex MILO is 19.9%. A tunable
observed in the experiment, which is in good agreement with MILO is put forward and simulated. The 3 dB tunable
simulation one [51]. frequency range is 2.25e0.825 GHz and the tuning
bandwidth is 92%.
5. Conclusions (3) The X-band TKA and Ku-band coaxial TTO with the high
power capacity and power efficiency are reported. An
The research progresses on Cherenkov and transit-time asymmetric input cavity is designed to avoid the compli-
HPM sources at NUDT of China are presented. The main cated diode structure of the previous TKAs. By a reflector
contents and innovative work are as follows. with high reflection coefficients both to the asymmetric
(1) Recent experimental results of three kinds of long pulse mode and the TEM mode, the asymmetric mode compe-
HPM sources operating in S, C and X-bands are reported. tition is effectively suppressed. At 9.37 GHz, a microwave
 J. Zhang et al. / Matter and Radiation at Extremes 1 (2016) 163e178 177

with power of 240 MW and gain of 34 dB is obtained. In [13] R.Z. Xiao, Z.M. Song, Y.Q. Deng, C.H. Chen, Mechanism of phase
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