Operation Characteristics of Microwave Sources Based on Slow-Wave Interactions in Rectangular Corrugations

Abstract

Studies on slow-wave devices with a novel disk cathode and two types of rectangular corrugation are reported. The beam voltage is weakly relativistic, which is less than 100 kV. A disk cathode can generate a uniformly distributed annular beam in the weakly relative region. Rectangular corrugation having the ratio of the corrugation width to the periodic length of 50 or 20% is used. Using the former, output powers of about 200 kW are obtained at around 100 kV. For the latter, the effect of slow cyclotron resonance is observed in the low-energy region of around 30 kV. Output powers of slow cyclotron masers are in the range of a few hundred W. The operation mode of a slow cyclotron maser can be controlled between axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric modes by changing the end condition of rectangular corrugation.