Multipactor suppression in amplitude modulated radio frequency fields

Abstract

An analytical and numerical investigation is made of the multipactor phenomenon in a simple one-dimensional metallic gap exposed to a homogeneous rf field consisting of two carrier waves with close but separated frequencies. It is shown that in contrast to the monochromatic case (i.e., single carrier operation), the time varying envelope resulting from the beating of the two carrier waves leads to a suppression of multipactor breakdown, if appropriate combinations of carrier amplitudes and frequency separation are chosen. Furthermore, this combination depends neither on gap width nor on frequency range. Based on these results it is possible to draw the tentative conclusion that the regime of multicarrier operation is very promising from the point of view of avoiding breakdown. This is particularly so in systems of complicated geometry where single carrier operation may lead to multipactor breakdown for any high level of rf power.

CEST and MEST: Tools for the simulation of radio frequency electric discharges in waveguides

“…The energy of the latter diminishes by an ionization energy E I , thus preserving the overall energy, while the newly generated electron moves under the influence of the RF electric field. The influence in our model due to the generated ions is neglected, as in the works of [20,21,24,25].…”

Long-term multipactor discharge in multicarrier systems

“…This leads to extremely high peak power levels in the multicarrier path of the spacecraft, which results in an increasing risk of multipactor discharge. 4,5 The study of multipactor in multicarrier operation is much more complex than in the single-carrier case. A typical multicarrier signal is composed of several modulated carriers with small frequency separation.…”

Analysis of wedge-shaped waveguides and design of multipactor-resistant microwave bandpass filters. Análisis de guías de onda en forma de cuña y diseño de filtros de microondas paso-banda resistentes al efecto multipactor.

“…for navigation and digital broadcasting satellite services. More advanced multi-carrier mul- tipactor analysis theories, based on the non-stationary single-carrier method [25,26], were developed to cope with these cases. Other advanced algorithms consider the contribution of the space charge fields [27] in the multipactor prediction.…”