1.5 octave wideband traveling-wave tube with heavily-loaded helical slow-wave structure

Summary form only given. A 1.5 octave wideband traveling wave tube (TWT) with a helical structure loaded by the thick dielectric support rods has been designed and fabricated for the frequency range of 6-18 GHz. Helical slow-wave structure (SWS) was modeled using three-dimensional HFSS code. The nonresonant perturbation measurement using a thin copper wire with 20 mm diameter was performed to verify the phase velocity and interaction impedance of the helical structure. The performance of TWT was predicted using one-dimensional (1-D) nonlinear theory involving a macro particle beam model. The harmonic effect was considered in this calculation. The measured performance of TWT using a beam voltage 4 kV and a beam current of 120 mA was shown. These results were compared with a 1-D nonlinear theory. The comparison showed that the measured power and gain were less than the predicted one but had a similar trend over the operating frequency range. The 2nd harmonic levels at the low frequency range of 6-8 GHz were nearly 0 dBc. This relatively high 2nd harmonic level might be attributed to the positive dispersion at the low frequency range due to the deformation of a barrel during the assembly process.