Transient ion disturbances in traveling wave tubes

Abstract

It is well known that the presence of ions in the electron beam of a traveling wave tube (TWT) can lead to periodic variations in the output power, phase and the body (or helix) current. This has been referred to as ion noise or jitter. Recently, we have observed a different form of jitter, and while it is still observed as a small variation in the TWT output (typically <0.5 dB in power and 2/spl deg/ in phase), it is not periodic. We refer to this phenomenon as random jitter, since its random nature in time is a defining characteristic, Other characteristics include a relatively fast onset (/spl sim/1 ms) and slow (/spl sim/500 ms) recovery. It was found that random jitter was due to the spurious release of extremely small amounts of trapped gas inside the TWT. The source of the gas was identified and the problem was resolved. The observed level of fluctuations in power and phase had no effect on digital traffic and the small quantity of gas was found to have no measurable impact on cathode life.