Development of an Ultrawideband D-Band Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier for High-Speed Wireless Communication

D-band high speed communication applications require an amplifier with broad bandwidth and high power. The vacuum high-power amplifiers, however, exhibit a limitation in bandwidth, while broadband solid-state amplifiers (SSAs) suffer from relatively low output power. These inherent constraints prevent them from concurrently fulfilling the requirements for both extensive transmission distances and high communication rates. In order to address this challenge, this article presents a novel broadband traveling wave tube Amplifier (TWTA) based on the folded waveguide slow wave structure (FWGSWS). According to test results, the D-band TWTA provides a bandwidth of 30 GHz and an output power of 20 W, corresponding to a relative bandwidth exceeding 20%.