Analysis of the multipactor effect by means of the 3D BI-RME method

Multipactor effect is a well-known phenomenon of RF breakdown in satellite pay-loads which degrades components, generates undesirable harmonics, contributes to power dissipation and increases noise in communications. Traditionally, multipactor has been investigated with the aim of obtaining the so-called multipactor threshold voltage, or to present different multipaction detection methods. Little effort has been devoted, in contrast, to study the problem from a full-wave point of view, thus allowing for the analysis of more complex structures. The main goal of this work is to analyze the interaction between a multipactor current and a realistic microwave cavity by means of a rigorous and accurate formulation. For the first time to the authors' knowledge, a full-wave method based on the 3-D BI-RME (Boundary Integral - Resonant Mode Expansion) technique is proposed to model the aforementioned undesired effect. In this work, the classical formulation used in the 3-D BI-RME method is exploited to achieve a full-wave representation of the multipactor effect in terms of an equivalent multimode network expressed in the form of a generalized admittance matrix. We present preliminary results where a multipactor discharge within a canonical rectangular cavity has been modeled by means of this novel method. As a result, the authors have concluded that the generalized admittance matrix obtained in the classical 3-D BI-RME formulation needs to be charged with an appropriate set of current sources to cope with a rigorous characterization of the multipactor effect.