Investigation of limitations on average power of a dematron-cathode amplifier

For the past several years Litton has pursued the development of linear format, nonre-entrant, self-modulated crossed-field amplifiers (CFA). From this work there have evolved high-performance, forward-wave slow-wave structures and excellent cold, secondary-emission cathodes. This paper describes the application of these slow-wave structures and cold cathodes to re-entrant-beam, circular-format, cathode-pulsed CFA's. The design of the circular-format CFA is comparable to that of existing linear-format DEMATRONS. Thus for the first time a direct comparison between these two types of amplifiers can be made.