Additively manufactured structures for high power microwave devices

Additive manufacturing techniques, like 3D printing, offer many benefits to the design and manufacture of high power microwave (HPM) components, including the ability to conduct rapid prototyping. A good prototype, however, must be a suitable approximation of the production device. To that end, we have evaluated metallized 3D printed plastic anodes for use in a recirculating planar magnetron. While other authors have examined a metallized plastic structure in an HPM device, our work is the first use of a 3D printed structure, and the first where the electron beam impacts the 3D printed anode.