Simulation Studies on Stacked Magnetrons for Enhanced Power Output Suitable for Power Combining Applications

There are many modern day niche applications that may benefit if the output power of several magnetrons is combined together to produce a high power output at microwave frequencies. However, this requires all the magnetrons to be phase-locked to a reference. Phase locking of multiple magnetrons to a reference phase needs careful design, implementation, and considerable hardware. This article presents the design and computational studies on cascaded magnetron topologies, which may reduce the number of phase-locking circuits and power supply units by a factor of two and deliver a high output power. Furthermore, the evolution of output power and efficiency with changes in critical dimensions of the cascaded magnetrons is reported and an attempt is made to provide a qualitative understanding of its working. This article also proposes a new cascaded magnetron structure, which enhances the power output. All simulation studies are carried out for 2.45-GHz magnetron to validate the design. The novel design presented in this article gives a maximum continuous wave (CW) power of around 45 kW with an efficiency of around 49%.