A dual mode, gridded crossed-field amplifier

This paper describes gridded crossed-field amplifier (CFA) tubes in S and C-bands. These tubes are sole voltage tuneable and achieve octave coverage with three sole voltages. The average power capability of these tubes is 1 kilowatt and peak power operation demonstrated capability is between 1 kilowatt cw and 10 kilowatts at 10% duty. i) the slow-wave circuit ii) the cooling of the slow-wave circuit iii) the triode gun for the injected beam The cooling method allows the use of a number of standard coolants. The slow-wave circuit is a meander line on ceramics with a ground plane providing inter-finger shielding to achieve the required low dispersion. The triode allows the beam current to be continuously varied from full on to full off, and hence, allows efficient amplitude modulation of the output power of the CFA.