Design and implementation of dual independent Vircators driven by a single pulsed power source

Abstract

Dual, independent Vircators are currently being designed and fabricated that are to be driven by a single pulsed power source at the Center for Physical and Power Electronics at the University of Missouri-Columbia.Each Vircator source is manually tunable over a range of 800 MHz to 1.5 GHz by varying anode-cathode gap. The Vircators are driven by a single pulsed power source that, in conjunction with a linear transformer adder, will have an output of 250 kV, an output impedance of 23.04 Ω, and a 70 ns pulsewidth. The designed output of each Vircator is around 10 to 20 MW assuming 1% efficiency. Each Vircator's RF signal is transmitted to an anechoic chamber via waveguide.We will present details of the design, including FDTD-PIC simulations using MAGIC and electromagnetic simulations using CST Microwave Studio.