Design, Fabrication, and Low-Power Tests of a W-band Omniguide Traveling-Wave Tube Structure

Author

Smirnova, Evgenya I. ; Carlsten, Bruce E. ; Earley, Lawrence M.

Author_Institution

Los Alamos Nat. Lab., Los Alamos, NM

Volume

36

Issue

3

fYear

2008

fDate

6/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

763

Lastpage

767

Abstract

We have designed, fabricated, and tested with low power a novel W-band traveling-wave tube (TWT) structure based on a slow-wave cylindrically symmetric photonic band gap (PBG) structure, or an ldquoomniguide.rdquo The development of wideband millimeter-wave power amplifiers is underway at Los Alamos National Laboratory. PBG TWT structures have great potential for very large bandwidth and linear dispersion. In addition, being cheap to fabricate, the PBG structures enhance commercial transferability of W-band TWT technology. The omniguide structure was designed and fabricated with silica dielectric with a copper harness. Cold-test results were found to be in excellent agreement with the design. A bandwidth of more than 10% was demonstrated. This structure is designed to generate millimeter-wave RF when driven by a 2-A 120-keV electron beam.

Keywords

millimetre wave power amplifiers; photonic band gap; silicon compounds; slow wave structures; W-band omniguide traveling-wave tube structure; current 2 A; design; electron beam; electron volt energy 120 keV; fabrication; frequency 56 GHz to 100 GHz; low-power tests; silica dielectric; slow-wave cylindrically symmetric photonic band gap structure; wideband millimeter-wave power amplifiers; Bandwidth; Broadband amplifiers; Copper; Dielectrics; Fabrication; Laboratories; Millimeter wave technology; Photonic band gap; Silicon compounds; Testing; Dielectric-loaded waveguides; millimeter-wave power amplifiers; photonic band gap (PBG) structures; traveling-wave tubes (TWTs);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPS.2008.923748

Filename

4539884