Demonstration of a High-Power Ka-Band Extended Interaction Klystron

The Ka-band extended interaction klystrons (EIK) have been developed at the Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IECAS), to satisfy the requirement for the high-power millimeter-wave sources in scientific researches. In this work, two kinds of high compression electron gun with the solid or hollow beams, the derivative electron optics systems using the compact permanent magnet uniform focusing and the shared efficient interaction circuit based on the multigap ladder cavity, have been studied in detail and well designed through a mass of calculations. After the mechanical design, finely manufacturing, and a series of technical processes, the Ka-band EIK prototype tubes have been successfully built and tested. For the solid beam scheme, the maximum output power achieves 20 kW in the bandwidth of 60 MHz, and, correspondingly, the gain of 53 dB and the efficiency of 24% are observed. The measured -1 and -3 dB bandwidths are about 220 and 350 MHz, respectively. Meanwhile, the beam transmission is excellent, that is over 97% in dc state and over 90% in RF operation. For the hollow beam case, an over 91% dc transmission test has finished.