Design of a Ka-band gyro-TWT for radar applications

The design of a Ka-band gyrotron traveling wave tube (TWT) amplifier capable of operating over a wide range of peak powers and bandwidths is presented. The amplifier operates in the TE/sub 11/ mode at the fundamental cyclotron harmonic. Instantaneous bandwidths in the range of 2.5 to 3.9 GHz (at 1 dB below saturation) with corresponding peak powers between 92.2 and 57.9 kW can be achieved by simply adjusting the mod-anode voltage of the electron gun. The corresponding gains range from 57.1 to 36.0 dB. The design performance is obtained with a high quality, 6 A, 70 kV electron beam generated with a double-anode magnetron injection gun. This wide range performance capability in the design is achieved via the use of the distributed loss approach in the interacting circuit, which also guarantees zero-drive stability. A diffractive loading scheme is employed in the lossy section of the circuit to ensure high average power operation of the amplifier.