Design of an RF Electron Gun Featuring a Spoof Localized Surface Plasmon Grid

This article introduces an innovative design for a thermionic grid-controlled RF electron gun that utilizes a spoof localized surface plasmons (SLSPs) structure as the grid. The strong resonance and high size compression capabilities of SLSP enable the electron gun to achieve reduced current, compact dimensions, and minimal modulation power requirements. The gun emits pre-modulated pulse electron beams (EBs) with a 40GHz repetition rate and an 18 mA peak current. Simulation experiments demonstrate the gun’s capability to detect the relative phase of electrons in the beam-wave interaction (BWI) process using this pre-modulated beam. This novel RF electron gun design opens new avenues for future detection of TWT components.