Further development of the double cavity microwave pulse compression source and laser-induced plasma switching

Summary form only given. The operation of the double-cavity system is being extended to megawatt output levels. Vector superposition of pulsed fields is limited by timing jitter and related amplitude instabilities. Prepulse power levels can be typically 75 dB below output power levels for a single cavity. With two parallel single-mode cavities, leakage fields are phase related. It has been shown that, with appropriate relative phase shifting, the combined leakages destructively interfere at the resonant frequency (near 2860 MHz) and indicate that further suppression of prepulse power by at least an additional 20 dB to the -95-dB comparative level is possible. Multiple-cavity systems benefit from the distribution of high microwave fields to several cavities, permitting more stable lower-field operation at the single-cavity level. These developments obviate the need for multiple plasma switching which is versatile, efficient, fast, and of low jitter. A laser-induced gaseous plasma switch that supplies localized, high-level preionization of rapid microwave impedance switching in multiple cavities is being developed