On a D-band Traveling Wave Tube for Wireless Links

The D-band (141 - 178 GHz), due to relatively low attenuation and about 27 GHz available bandwidth, is attractive for point to multipoint backhaul. However, solid state power amplifiers at those frequencies do not have sufficient power to assure a long propagation range with 99.99% availability. This paper will describe the design and fabrication of a novel D-band traveling wave tube power amplifier to enable the first point to multipoint wireless system at D-band. The design approach is for potentially large scale production. For the first time, a new topology of double corrugated waveguide, used as slow wave structure, has been fabricated and measured at D-band. The D-band TWT provides about 35 dB gain and more than 12 W output power.