Experimental Verification of Multipactor Discharge Dynamics Between Ferrite Dielectric and Metal

The underlying mechanisms of multipactor between dielectric and metal and the discharge threshold of practical dielectric components have been investigated numerically and experimentally in this paper. The reduction in secondary electron yield (SEY) and the change in surface condition are achieved using the microstructure processing technology on both of ferrite dielectric and metal. Combined with the electromagnetic particle-in-cell method, the SEY model fit with the experimental data is utilized to simulate multipactor in three groups of ferrite circulators with different surface conditions. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the multipactor threshold of the circulator is increased by a factor of 2 through the SEY reduction on the ferrite and is increased by a factor of more than 8, from 380 W to more than 3400 W, through the SEY reduction on both of the ferrite and the metal. Different multipactor discharge mechanisms, including two-side multipactor with positive charge accumulation, singe-side multipactor with negative charge accumulation, and multipactor suppression effect, exist in circulators with the same physical structure and different surface conditions.