Design and Experiment of a Q-band Gyro-TWT Loaded With Lossy Dielectric

Distributed lossy dielectric is of considerable interest for high-power milli- and submillimeter radiation sources, particularly for gyrotron traveling wave tubes (gyro-TWTs). The analytical design and experiment of a Q-band gyro-TWT loaded with periodic lossy dielectric rings operating in the circular TE
₀₁
mode at the fundamental cyclotron harmonic are presented. The gyro-TWT is driven by a 70-kV 10-A helical electron beam with a velocity ratio of 1.0. Hot test performs maximum peak output power of 152 kW, 41-dB saturated gain, and 21.7% efficiency at 47.6 GHz. The measured bandwidth over 100 kW is at the range of 47-49 GHz. PIC simulation and large-signal prediction show excellent agreements to the hot test results. The potential backward wave oscillation interactions involving the spurious modes TE
₁₁
, TE
₂₁
, and TE
₀₂
are effectively suppressed by loading lossy dielectric rings periodically. The Q-band gyro-TWT is zero-drive stable at the operating points, which demonstrates that loading lossy dielectric is excellent to stabilize the spurious oscillations. Moreover, the designs of magnetron injection gun, interaction circuits, and input and output structures are also achieved to satisfy the requirements.