A 140-GHz Two-Beam Overmoded Folded-Waveguide Traveling-Wave Tube

A folded-waveguide (FW) traveling-wave tube (TWT) with two electron beams, which operates at the higher order mode, is simulated. Operating with two electron beams means that a larger beam current can be used for a higher output power. Meanwhile, the electric field density of the fundamental mode is not the strongest at the center of the beam channel, so the competition of the fundamental mode is significantly suppressed. A four-section two-beam FWTWT at 140 GHz is designed to get 100 W of average power. From the simulation results, we can see that this kind of tube is unstable if the gain per section is over 11 dB, because both fundamental and band-edge modes are strongly excited. Then, another way for a stable FWTWT operation with two electron beams by loading with dielectric is also presented in this paper. The results presented here can provide a new way to obtain high power radiation at the terahertz frequency.