Design of an X-band, 50 MW, multiple beam klystron

Calabazas Creek Research has designed a 50 MW, multiple beam klystron (MBK) with eight separate electron beams operating at 11.424 GHz with an efficiency of 54%. The MBK will be integrated with an electron gun in development on a current U.S. Department of Energy grant. The gun is being fabricated and will be tested in July, 2003. During the initial MBK development, several circuits capable of generating an RF output power of 50 MW were investigated. These circuits included ring resonators, hybrid cavities and standard reentrant cavities. The final design included an optimized, high efficiency (54%), eight cavity, interaction circuit, consisting of a mutually coupled set of input cavities, five discrete hybrid cavities for each circuit and a mutually coupled output cavities combined to transmit the RF power through a single window.