A tuneable narrow-band high power vircator

Summary form only given. The generation of high-power microwaves from a radially extracted vircator has been studied experimentally at diode voltages from 660 kV to 1 MV and at diode currents from 48 kA to 75 kA. The structure of this vircator is novel in preserving the symmetry between the real cathode and the virtual cathode so that pure frequencies can be produced. In this vircator, a 15-μm Al foil was adopted as the anode. As the diode gap spacing was varied from 12 mm to 6.6 mm, three discrete dominant narrowband TE₁₀ microwaves at 8.63±0.05 GHz, 9.75±0.03 GHz, and 10.53±0.03 GHz were observed. The frequency was increased discretely as the diode gap spacing was reduced. The maximum observed powers are 100 MW at 8.63 GHz, 70 MW at 9.75 GHz, and 55 MW at 10.53 GHz