High Power Nanosecond RF Pulse Generation in Nonlinear Transmission Lines with Spatial Dispersion

In recent years, nonlinear transmission lines (NLTLs) with ferrite have been actively developed for the tasks of high-voltage pulse sharpening and generating radio frequency nanosecond pulses. They have a number of features that distinguish them from traditional devices of high-power microwave electronics. In the decimeter wavelength range, their power characteristics can approach those of vacuum devices. This article is devoted to the experimental study of two radio pulse generators based on NLTL with saturated ferrite. NLTLs are coaxial transmission lines with spatial dispersion. The spatial dispersion in the line is related to the corrugated structure of the inner conductor of the transmission line. A feature of the generator is also that the ferrite filling is saturated in a magnetic field created by permanent magnets located inside the central conductor of the transmission line. In the experiments with the first NLTL the generation of radio pulses with a duration of about 10 ns and a central frequency of 1.1 GHz was observed. Peak power reached 810 MW with an energy efficiency of 5%. For the second NLTL, the generation of radio pulses with a central frequency of 1.7 GHz and a peak power of 300 MW with a duration of up to 8 ns was demonstrated.