Experimental Study on W-Band (75 - 110 GHz) Oversized Surface Wave Oscillator Driven by Weakly Relativistic Electron Beams

Abstract

A W-band (75 - 110 GHz) oversized surface wave oscillator driven by weakly relativistic electron beams with energy in the range of 10 - 80 keV is studied. Rectangular corrugations are used as slow-wave structures (SWS) having surface waves with an upper cutoff frequency of approximately 100 GHz (W-band). Uniformly distributed annular electron beams are generated by a disk-type cold cathode and then are injected into the W-band oscillator. A longer SWS length causes the oscillator to function in both backward wave oscillator (BWO) and travelling wave tube (TWT) operations, and no meaningful oscillation occurs at the π-point or the Bragg condition. When the SWS length is short enough, oscillation occurs in all regions: BWO, π-point and TWT. The operations of the oscillator are strongly affected by the structure length. The maximum radiation power is estimated to be approximately 20 kW with the figure of merit of about 2 × 10² MW.GHz².