Particle-in-Cell Simulations of Ten-Vane Microwave-Oven Free-Running 2.45-GHz “Cooker” Magnetron: Microwave Power Increase up to 6 kW in a Pulsed Mode (3 kW With 50% Duty Cycle)

Abstract

Standard operation of a conventional microwave oven 2.45-GHz “cooker” magnetron with 4.0–4.3 kV of pulsed applied voltages at 0.17–0.19-T magnetic fields results in generation of pulsed microwave power 1.8–2.8 kW, which is recalculated to an average microwave power 0.9–1.9 kW when the “cooker” magnetron operates with 50% duty cycle while driven by a “rectified” ac voltage from the wall-plug. It has been shown in many experimental studies of “cold-start” operation of a standard ten-vane 2.45-GHz “cooker” magnetron that it readily sustains, when properly conditioned, up to ~10-kV dc and up to ~14 kV of peak-to-peak ac applied voltage with just a few microamphere cold (field emission) leakage (anode) current. The latter suggests that a standard 2.45-GHz “cooker” magnetron may successfully operate in the desired, lowest <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pi $ </tex-math></inline-formula> -mode with much more output microwave power at even higher magnetic fields when driven by up to ~10 kV of dc or quasi-dc appropriate, synchronous applied voltage. Results of improved concurrent electromagnetic particle-in-cell (ICEPIC) simulations of magnetron operation at different magnetic fields with synchronous applied voltages show that, for example, with 8.0-kV applied voltage at 0.35-T magnetic field, the 2.45-GHz “cooker” magnetron is able to generate up to 6.0 kW of pulsed microwave power with an anode current of ~0.9 A.