Theoretical Analysis and PIC Simulation of a 220-GHz Second-Harmonic Confocal Waveguide Gyro-TWT Amplifier

Confocal gyrotron traveling-wave tube (gyro-TWT) is capable of operating in higher order modes, so it is attractive in high-frequency (> 100 GHz) band. However, the reported experimental and simulation results of confocal gyro-TWT usually operated at fundamental harmonic, so high external magnetic field was essential. In this paper, a second harmonic 220-GHz confocal gyro-TWT was designed through linear and nonlinear theory and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. The key problem of suppressing the backward-wave oscillations (BWOs) of both fundamental and second harmonics was solved by limiting the cavity length of the first section less than the critical BWOs length. In PIC simulations, the gyro-TWT operates at HE07 mode with an output power of 4.55 kW, the efficiency of 2.2% gain of 21.8 and the -3 dB bandwidth of 6 GHz. The calculated results from the nonlinear theory are in good agreement with the results from PIC simulation.