Jiande Zhang

Recent Advance in Long-Pulse HPM Sources With Repetitive Operation in S-, C-, and X-Bands

Recent experimental results of three kinds of long-pulse high-power microwave (HPM) sources operating in S-, C-, and X-bands are reported. The difficulties in producing a long-pulse HPM for the O-type Cerenkov HPM source were analyzed theoretically. In S- and C-bands, single-mode relativistic backward-wave oscillators were designed to achieve long-pulse HPM outputs; in X-band, because of its shorter wavelength, an O-type Cerenkov HPM source with overmoded slow-wave systems was designed to increase power capacity. In experiments, driven by a repetitive long-pulse accelerator, both S- and C-band sources generated HPMs with power of about 2 GW and pulse duration of about 100 ns in single-shot mode, and the S-band source operated stably with output power of 1.2 GW in 20-Hz repetition mode. The X-band source generated 2 GW microwaves power with pulse duration of 80 ns in the single-shot mode and 1.2 GW microwave power with pulse duration of about 100 ns in the 20-Hz repetition mode. The experiments show good performances of the O-type Cerenkov HPM source in generating repetitive long-pulse HPMs, especially in S- and C-bands. It was suggested that explosive emissions on surfaces of designed eletrodynamic structures restrained pulse duration and operation stability.

Recent progress of the improved magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator

The improved magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator (MILO) is a gigawatt-class L-band high power microwave tube driven by a 550 kV, 57 kA, 50 ns electron beam. It has allowed us to generate 2.4 GW pulse of 22 ns duration. The recent progress of the improved MILO is presented in this paper. First, a field shaper cathode is introduced into the improved MILO to avoid the cathode flares in the triple point region. The experimental results show that the cathode flares are avoided, so the lifetime of the velvet cathode is longer than that of the taper cathode. Furthermore, the shot-to-shot reproducibility is better than that of the taper cathode. Second, In order to prolong the pulse duration and increase the radiated microwave power, a self-built 600 kV, 10 Omega, 80 ns pulser: SPARK-03 is employed to drive the improved MILO. Simulation and experimental investigation are performed. In simulation, when the improved MILO is driven by a 600 kV, 57 kA electron beam, high-power microwave is generated with output power of 4.15 GW, frequency of 1.76 GHz, and relevant power conversion efficiency of 12.0%. In experiments, when the diode voltage is 550 kV and current is 54 kA, the measured results are that the radiated microwave power is above 3.1 GW, the pulse duration is above 40 ns, the microwave frequency is about 1.755 GHz, and the power conversion efficiency is about 10.4%.

A compact high power pulsed modulator based on spiral Blumlein line.

A compact high power pulsed modulator based on spiral water Blumlein line, which consists of primary storage capacitors, a Tesla transformer, a spiral Blumlein line of water dielectric, and a field-emission diode, is described. The experimental results showed that the diode voltage is more than 500 kV, the electron beam current of diode is about 32 kA, and the pulse duration is about 180 ns. The distributions for electrical field in the spiral water Blumlein line were obtained by the simulations. In addition, the process of the charging a spiral Blumlein line was simulated through the PSPICE software to get the wave form of charging voltage of pulse forming line, the diode voltage, and diode current of modulator. The theoretical and simulated results are in agreement. This accelerator is very compact and works stably and reliably.

Study on strip spiral Blumlein line for the pulsed forming line of intense electron-beam accelerators

The pulse forming line (PFL) is the key part of the intense electron-beam accelerators (IEBA), which determines the quality and characteristic of the output beam current of the IEBA. Compared with the accelerator with traditional Blumlein line, an IEBA based on strip spiral Blumlein line (SSBL) can increase the duration of the output pulse in the same geometrical dimension. But the disadvantage of the SSBL is that the output voltage waveform at the matched load may be distorted, which influences the electron beam quality. In this paper, according to the electromagnetic theory, formulas for calculating the main electric parameters of SSBL (inductance, capacitance, transmission time, and characteristic impedance) are deduced. The effect of the geometric parameters of SSBL on the slowing coefficient is analyzed. The designed condition of SSBL for the output ideal voltage pulse in the matched load is obtained by theoretical analysis. Furthermore, the Karat code is used to simulate the output voltage waveform of SSBL on the matched load for different spiral angels. At last, a couple of contrastive experiments are performed on an electron-beam accelerator based on the SSBL with water dielectric. The experimental results agree with the theoretical and simulated results.

A double-band high-power microwave source

In order to increase the power conversion efficiency of a magnetically insulated line oscillator (MILO), an axially extracted virtual cathode oscillator (VCO) is introduced to utilize the load current in the MILO, so it is called the MILO-VCO. In this device, the MILO and VCO are operated synchronously and generate high-power microwaves. The MILO-VCO is investigated in detail with particle-in-cell (PIC) methods (KARAT code). In simulation, the diode voltage is 640 kV and the current is 50 kA. The total peak power of the MILO-VCO is 5.22 GW and the corresponding power conversion efficiency is 16.3%. In the MILO-VCO, the peak power of the MILO is 3.91 GW and its frequency is 1.76 GHz; the peak power of the VCO is 1.33 GW and its frequency is 3.79 GHz.

A low-impedance transit-time oscillator without foils

A low-impedance transit-time oscillator (LITTO) without foils is proposed and studied by simulation. By using a coaxial structure, the space-charge limiting current can be improved significantly, thus allowing higher input and output powers. With no foils to erode, the only factor limiting the repetition rate is the ability to maintain an adequate vacuum. By contrast with conventional transit-time oscillators, the proposed LITTO has the advantages of low diode impedance, rapid saturation time, and a possibility of repetitive operation. As indicated in PIC simulation, the average microwave output power is over 5.0 GW at the main frequency of 1.6 GHz, with an input electron beam of 36.0 kA current and 600 kV voltage, and an external magnetic field of 0.45 Tesla.

Transversal and longitudinal mode selections in double-corrugation coaxial slow-wave devices

To reduce the dimensions of relativistic backward wave oscillators (RBWOs) operating in the low frequency regime of less than 2 GHz, the theory of transversal and longitudinal mode selections are introduced in this paper. The transversal mode selection is achieved using the property of “surface wave” of the coaxial slow-wave structure (SWS) to excite the quasi transverse electromagnetic (quasi-TEM) mode without the higher transverse magnetic (TM) modes and it is proved that the coaxial SWS may decrease the transversal dimension of the SWS sections. In addition, the S-parameter method is employed to investigate the longitudinal resonant characteristic of the finite-length SWS, and the scheme of longitudinal mode selection is put forward. It is proposed that the introduction of a well-designed coaxial extractor to slow-wave devices can help to achieve the longitudinal mode selection and reduce the period number of the SWS, which not only can make the devices more compact, but also can avoid the destructive ...

An oversized X-band transit radiation oscillator

An oversized transit radiation oscillator is designed to generate high power microwave at X-band. By using a coaxial structure, the power capacity of the device is improved significantly. In order to realize long-pulse operation, the cathode-anode gap, the collector location, and the surface field strength have been emphatically considered in our design. With a 710 kV, 14.5 kA beam guided by a 0.8 T magnetic field, a 2.7 GW microwave at 9.38 GHz has been obtained in the simulation. The power conversion efficiency is 26.2%. The simulation also indicates that the highest axial electric field strength on the surface of electrodynamic structure is only 590 kV/cm, which could be further decreased by increasing the radial dimension of the X-band device.

Coaxial Capacitive Dividers for High-Voltage Pulse Measurements in Intense Electron Beam Accelerator With Water Pulse-Forming Line

In this paper, a new coaxial capacitive divider is investigated. The electrical characteristics of the capacitive divider are theoretically analyzed, and the parameters of the capacitive divider are calculated and measured. Its rise time is about 8 ns, and the divider ratio is over 2000. The divider is employed to measure the pulsed high voltages of an intense electron beam accelerator with a water pulse-forming line (PFL) in our laboratory. The capacitive divider can directly measure the diode voltage within nanoseconds, and when combined with an integrator, it can measure the PFL charging voltage with a duration of several microseconds. Compared with conventional resistance dividers, the capacitive divider has more advantages, such as compactness, stability, a relatively high divider ratio, a fast response time, and not much of an effect on the accelerator.

A long-pulse repetitive operation magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator

The improved magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator (MILO) is a gigawatt-class L-band high power microwave tube. It has allowed us to generate 3.1 GW pulse of 40 ns duration in the single-pulse operation and 500 MW pulse of 25 ns duration in the repetition rate operation. However, because of the severe impedance mismatch, the power conversion efficiency is only about 4% in the repetition rate operation. In order to eliminate the impedance mismatch and obtain repetitive long-pulse high-power microwave (HPM), a series of experiments are carried out and the recent progress is presented in this paper. In the single-pulse operation, when the diode voltage is 466 kV and current is 41.6 kA, the radiated microwave power is above 2.2 GW, the pulse duration is above 102 ns, the microwave frequency is about 1.74 GHz, and the power conversion efficiency is about 11.5%. In the repetition rate operation, under the condition of the diode voltage about 400 kV, beam current about 38 kA, the radiated microwave power is about 1.0 GW, the pulse duration is about 85 ns. Moreover, the radiated microwave power and the pulse duration decline little by little when the shot numbers increase gradually. The experimental results show that the impedance matching is a vital factor for HPM systems and one of the major technical challenges is to improve the cathode for the repetition rate operation MILO.