A 3D-Printed Metamaterial Slow Wave Structure for High-Power Microwave Generation

We present a high power microwave (HPM) source based on a metamaterial slow wave structure (MSWS). The MSWS is composed of a circular waveguide with periodic loading of two complementary split-ring resonator disks and was designed at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). This SWS has been studied and simulated to quantify its cold structure properties. Moreover, a backward wave oscillator (BWO) using the proposed SWS has been simulated using a particle-in-cell solver to evaluate its performance. In simulations this BWO has generated 88 MW peak power in a pulse duration on the order of 15 ns with frequency about 2.9 GHz. This SWS was fabricated using 3D printing and copper plating technology and was tested using the SINUS-6 pulsed electron beam accelerator at the University of New Mexico (UNM). This paper presents the results.