Multiple-beam and double-mode staggered double vane travelling wave tube with ultra-wide band

This paper presents design, fabrication and cold test of an ultra-wide band travelling wave tube (TWT) with planar alignment multiple pencil beams. The fundamental double-mode of staggered double vane slow wave structure (SDV-SWS) rather than the only one mode are put forward and adopted to match with the same electron beam to increase the bandwidth greatly. Simultaneous planar alignment multiple pencil beam tunnels are designed to improve interaction impedance and then to enhance output power, gain, efficiency, growth rate. The transmission performance of a two-stage 51-period SDV-TWT in G-band with structure attenuator between two sections shows that it indeed has an ultra-wideband performance from 81 to 110 GHz. By using computer numerical control machining, the SDV-SWS was manufactured and a detailed cold test was conducted. Good agreement is found at the wide band, where S(21) is above − 5 dB and S(11) is below − 10 dB. 3D PIC simulations with double-mode multiple-beam SDV-TWT within total length of 70 mm show that it can get a nearly 2120 W peak output power, a 42.5 dB corresponding gain and a 10.7% electron efficiency at 94 GHz with a 22.1 kV beam voltage and a 3 × 0.15A beam current. The 3 dB bandwidth of our double-mode SDV-TWT can achieve about 29 GHz.