ICEPIC and CST-PS simulations of a “cooker” 2.45 GHz magnetron

Abstract

Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of a conventional microwave oven 2.45 GHz “cooker” magnetron with a “cold” explosive-emission cathode and external uniform axial magnetic field 0.19 T are performed with two computer codes, ICEPIC and CST-PS. PIC simulations are done to compare results obtained by these two codes to each other and, by such a way, identify all possible advantages and disadvantages of each code performance as a reliable tool allowing to predict all important characteristics of the magnetron operation. Results of the PIC simulations showed that the range of applied voltages within which the magnetron is able to operate in the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\pi$</tex> -mode is much broader inside CST-PS virtual reality (VR), from 4.00 kV to 4.70 kV, than it is inside ICEPIC one, from 3.90 kV to 4.10 kV. It is also shown that while the ICEPIC magnetron startup time gradually decreases from about 700 ns (3.90 kV) to about 100 ns (4.20 kV) with the applied voltage increase, the CST-PS’ one is at first chaotically varies between about 1000 ns (4.03 kV) and about 300 ns (4.01 kV) and only then gradually and rapidly decreases down to almost 10–20 ns (4.40-4.60 kV) with the applied voltage increase. Subjective interpretation of the obtained PIC simulation results suggests that the ICEPIC code would be a quite more reliable tool to deal with in further execution of the planned 2.45 GHz “cooker” magnetron scope of work. Additional PIC simulation with, for example, MAGIC or VORPAL codes, would be interesting to perform as well to clarify the obtained discrepancies in the obtained so far PIC simulation results.