Study of a Log-Periodic Slow Wave Structure for Ka-band Radial Sheet Beam Traveling Wave Tube

A novel slow wave structure (SWS) named angular log-periodic meander-line is proposed for a radial traveling wave tube (TWT). In this paper, a 30 log-periods microstrip angular log-periodic meander-line SWS is studied. The dispersion of this kind of SWS is weak, which shows that it can work in a wide operating bandwidth. The more important advantage is that the operating voltage is much lower than that of the conventional TWT at the same operating frequency and the geometrical dimension is also much smaller than that of the conventional TWT. The beam–wave interaction of the angular log-periodic meander-line TWT is calculated using the particle-in-cell method. When the operating voltage is 1624 V, this kind of TWT can give 156.5-W output power at 35 GHz, the gain is 21.9 dB, and the electron efficiency is ${\sim}17.7%$ . With this kind of TWT as mentioned, the concept of radial integrated angular log-periodic meander-line TWT is proposed, which can provide a new way to obtain higher output power.