Combining gigawatt level X-band high power microwave beams with an overmoded circular waveguide diplexer

To realize power combination of two phase-locked relativistic backward wave oscillators (RBWOs), a compact power combiner is designed and investigated by 3-D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation and experiment. The power combiner consists of two TM01-TE11 serpentine mode converters with a common output. When the two incident ports are fed with TM01 modes with a relative phase of 180° and power of 2.5 GW at each port, the conversion efficiency from the incident TM01 modes to the combined TE11 mode is 95.2% at 9.3 GHz, and the maximum electric field in the combiner is 714 kV/cm. The PIC simulation shows that the output power from the common port is 4.2 GW when the power combiner is connected to the two RBWOs with input signals, both producing 2.2 GW microwave, corresponding to a combination efficiency of 95.4%. In the high power microwave test, a method is proposed to obtain the combination efficiency without breaking the vacuum, which is 94.1% when the two phase-locked RBWOs output 1.8 GW and 2.2 GW. The power capacity of multi-gigawatts has been demonstrated.

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Influence of a falling edge on high power microwave pulse combination

Huang

Zhu

et al. 2016

Physics of Plasmas

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This paper presents an explanation of the influence of a microwave falling edge on high-power microwave pulse combination. Through particle-in-cell simulations, we discover that the falling edge is the driving factor that limits the output power of the combined pulses. We demonstrate that the space charge field, which accumulates to become comparable to the E-field at the falling edge of the former pulse, will trap the electrons in the gas layer and decrease its energy to attain a high ionization rate. Hence, avalanche discharge, caused by trapped electrons, makes the plasma density to approach the critical density and cuts off the latter microwave pulse. An X-band combination experiment is conducted with different pulse intervals. This experiment confirms that the high density plasma induced by the falling edge can cut off the latter pulse, and that the time required for plasma recombination in the transmission channel is several microseconds. To ensure a high output power for combined pulses, the latter pulse should be moved ahead of the falling edge of the former one, and consequently, a beat wave with high peak power becomes the output by adding two pulses with normal amplitudes.

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Combining gigawatt level X-band high power microwave beams with an overmoded circular waveguide diplexer

Cited by 17 publications

References 21 publications

The influence of ions and the induced secondary emission on the nanosecond high-gradient microwave breakdown at metal surface

The influence of ions and the induced secondary emission on the nanosecond high-gradient microwave breakdown at metal surface

Power combiner with high power capacity and high combination efficiency for two phase-locked relativistic backward wave oscillators

Influence of a falling edge on high power microwave pulse combination

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