Breakdown phenomena in high-power klystrons

In the course of developing new high-peak-power klystrons, high electric fields in several regions of these devices have become an important source of vacuum breakdown. In addition, a renewed interest in breakdown phenomena for nanosecond-pulse, megavolt-per-centimeter fields has been sparked by recent work in the area of gigawatt RF sources. The most important regions of electrical breakdown are in the output cavity gap area, the RF ceramic windows, and the gun ceramic insulator. The experiments and results on the breakdown in these regions are discussed, as well as the solutions to alleviate this breakdown problem.<
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