A Novel Staggered Double-Segmented Grating Slow-Wave Structure for 340 GHz Traveling-Wave Tube

Abstract

In this paper, a novel staggered double-segmented grating slow-wave structure (SDSG-SWS) is developed for wide-band high-power submillimeter wave traveling-wave tubes (TWTs). The SDSG-SWS can be considered as a combination of the sine waveguide (SW) SWS and the staggered double-grating (SDG) SWS; that is, it is obtained by introducing the rectangular geometric ridges of the SDG-SWS into the SW-SWS. Thus, the SDSG-SWS has the advantages of the wide operating band, high interaction impedance, low ohmic loss, low reflection, and ease of fabrication. The analysis for high-frequency characteristics shows that, compared with the SW-SWS, the SDSG-SWS has higher interaction impedance when their dispersions are at the same level, while the ohmic loss for the two SWSs remains basically unchanged. Furthermore, the calculation results of beam–wave interaction show that the output power is above 16.4 W for the TWT using the SDSG-SWS in the range of 316 GHz–405 GHz with a maximum power of 32.8 W occurring at 340 GHz, whose corresponding maximum electron efficiency is 2.84%, when the operating voltage is 19.2 kV and the current is 60 mA.