Experimental Study on Dynamics of Mode Competition in Magnetically Insulated Transmission Line Oscillator (MILO)

A mode competition phenomenon of gigawatts-nanonoseconds magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator (MILO) is experimentally investigated. A pulsed power system of 500 kV-35 kA and 130 ns pulse length is used for generating the relativistic electron beam. The microwave with peak power of 2.8 GW, pulse duration of 70 ns, and frequency of 1.14 GHz is observed. A spatiotemporal measurement using RF B-dotprobe is in a reasonable agreement with a numerical simulation using a particle-in-cell (PIC) code confirming mode competition between axial modes.