ATRI program at UCD

Summary form only given. The Advanced Thermionics Research Initiative Program (ATRI 2000) is now established at the University of California at Davis. Graduate students continue to receive fellowships as they train in the field of thermionics and microwave technology. Being in the Bay Area, the program benefits from the synergism between the microwave tube industries, SLAG, LLNL and LBNL, and the excellent faculties at UC Berkeley, Stanford and UC Davis. The primary charter of ATRI is still to support basic multidisciplinary graduate research in thermionics with an aim at providing engineers and scientists for the strategic microwave tube industry, to incorporate new technology and methods into the field, and to transfer that technology and disseminate information. The philosophy of the ATRI research program is to first understand a new mechanism on an analytical level, then use available computer software or codes developed by the students to numerically model the processes before testing and optimizing the device in the laboratory. Using this procedure, we have made significant contributions to the science of high power microwave generation. By having a strong research program in innovative rf devices, such as gyrotron amplifiers, photocathode rf linacs, free electron lasers, reaccelerated-electron-beam klystrons and also conventional TWTs, the students are exposed to the relevant science and technology in an active way.