Competition between modes with different axial structures in gyrotrons

Abstract

This study was motivated by some experiments in which it was found that during the voltage rise, instead of expected excitation of a high-frequency parasitic mode, the excitation of a lower-frequency parasitic mode takes place in a certain range of voltages. For explaining this fact, the dependence of start currents of possible competing modes on the beam voltage was carried out in the cold-cavity approximation and by using the self-consistent approach. It was found that in the case of cavities, which consist of the combination of a section of constant radius waveguide and a slightly uptapered waveguide, these two approaches yield completely different results. Thus, experimentally observed excitation of the low-frequency parasitic mode can be explained by the self-consistent modification of the axial profile of the excited field, which has strong influence on the diffractive quality factor of competing modes. This modification is especially pronounced in the case of excitation of modes with many axial variations which can be excited in the region of beam interaction with the backward-wave component of such modes.