A 0.85 THz vacuum-based power amplifier

Author

Basten, Mark A. ; Tucek, John C. ; Gallagher, David A. ; Kreischer, Kenneth E. ; Mihailovich, Robert

Author_Institution

Electron. Syst., Northrop Grumman Corp., Rolling Meadows, IL, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

24-26 April 2012

Firstpage

39

Lastpage

40

Abstract

A 0.850 THz vacuum electronic power amplifier capable of >;100mW output power is being developed at Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems. The compact power amplifier is based on a DRIE-fabricated folded waveguide slow-wave circuit, together with a high current density thermionic cathode, a high field permanent magnet solenoid, and a single-stage depressed collector for overall device efficiency. The new 0.85 THz power amplifier design is based on a 0.67 THz amplifier that achieved over 100mW of output power with 21.5 dB of gain, 15 GHz of operational bandwidth, a collector efficiency of 93% and an overall device efficiency of 0.44%.

Keywords

permanent magnets; power amplifiers; slow wave structures; solenoids; submillimetre wave amplifiers; thermionic cathodes; vacuum microelectronics; DRIE-fabricated folded waveguide; Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems; bandwidth 15 GHz; compact power amplifier; current density; efficiency 0.44 percent; efficiency 93 percent; frequency 0.67 THz; frequency 0.850 THz; gain 21.5 dB; high field permanent magnet solenoid; single-stage depressed collector; slow-wave circuit; thermionic cathode; vacuum electronic power amplifier; Bandwidth; Gain; Magnetic tunneling; Permanent magnets; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Solenoids; Terahertz; high-resolution imaging; submillimeter wave; vacuum electronics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Vacuum Electronics Conference (IVEC), 2012 IEEE Thirteenth International

Conference_Location

Monterey, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0188-6

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4673-0187-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IVEC.2012.6262066

Filename

6262066