Proof-of-Principle Experiment of a 20-kW-Average-Power Ka-Band Gyro-Traveling Wave Tube With a Cut-Off Waveguide Section

In this letter, a 20-kW-average-power Ka-band TE
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mode gyro-traveling wave tube (gyro-TWT) with a cut-off waveguide section is presented and verified by hot test experiment for the first time. To improve the average output power, the new type gyro-TWT adds a cut-off waveguide in high frequency beam-wave interaction circuits. The large signal nonlinear theory calculations and particle in cell (PIC) simulations show that the new type gyro-TWT has broadband and high-power output performances. The hot test experiment shows that the measured maximum average power is 20.3 kW at 34 GHz, corresponding to a saturated peak power of 169.2 kW, a saturated gain of 52 dB, an efficiency of ~26.9%, and 3 dB bandwidth of 3.2 GHz.