This paper presents a review of the experimental achievements related to the development of high-power gyrotron oscillators for long-pulse or CW operation and pulsed gyrotrons for many applications. In addition, this work gives a short overview on the present development status of frequency step-tunable and multi-frequency gyrotrons, coaxial-cavity multi-megawatt gyrotrons, gyrotrons for technological and spectroscopy applications, relativistic gyrotrons, large orbit gyrotrons (LOGs), quasi-optical gyrotrons, fast- and slow-wave cyclotron autoresonance masers (CARMs), gyroklystrons, gyro-TWT amplifiers, gyrotwystron amplifiers, gyro-BWOs, gyro-harmonic converters, gyro-peniotrons, magnicons, free electron masers (FEMs), and dielectric vacuum windows for such high-power mm-wave sources. Gyrotron oscillators (gyromonotrons) are mainly used as high-power millimeter wave sources for electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH), electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD), stability control, and diagnostics of magnetically confined plasmas for clean generation of energy by controlled thermonuclear fusion. The maximum pulse length of commercially available 140 GHz, megawatt-class gyrotrons employing synthetic diamond output windows is 30 min (CPI and European KIT-SPC-THALES collaboration). The world record parameters of the European tube are as follows: 0.92 MW output power at 30-min pulse duration, 97.5% Gaussian mode purity, and 44% efficiency, employing a single-stage depressed collector (SDC) for energy recovery. A maximum output power of 1.5 MW in 4.0-s pulses at 45% efficiency was generated with the QST-TOSHIBA (now CANON) 110-GHz gyrotron. The Japan 170-GHz ITER gyrotron achieved 1 MW, 800 s at 55% efficiency and holds the energy world record of 2.88 GJ (0.8 MW, 60 min) and the efficiency record of 57% for tubes with an output power of more than 0.5 MW. The Russian 170-GHz ITER gyrotron obtained 0.99 (1.2) MW with a pulse duration of 1000 (100) s and 53% efficiency. The prototype tube of the European 2-MW, 170-GHz coaxial-cavity gyrotron achieved in short pulses the record power of 2.2 MW at 48% efficiency and 96% Gaussian mode purity. Gyrotrons with pulsed magnet for various short-pulse applications deliver Pout = 210 kW with τ = 20 μs at frequencies up to 670 GHz (η ≅ 20%), Pout = 5.3 kW at 1 THz (η = 6.1%), and Pout = 0.5 kW at 1.3 THz (η = 0.6%). Gyrotron oscillators have also been successfully used in materials processing. Such technological applications require tubes with the following parameters: f > 24 GHz, Pout = 4–50 kW, CW, η > 30%. The CW powers produced by gyroklystrons and FEMs are 10 kW (94 GHz) and 36 W (15 GHz), respectively. The IR FEL at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in the USA obtained a record average power of 14.2 kW at a wavelength of 1.6 μm. The THz FEL (NOVEL) at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Russia achieved a maximum average power of 0.5 kW at wavelengths 50–240 μm (6.00–1.25 THz).

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State-of-the-Art of High-Power Gyro-Devices and Free Electron Masers

Gyrotron traveling wave tubes (gyro-TWTs) are of considerable interest for high-power millimeter and submillimeter radiation sources. The analytical design and experiment of a W -band gyro-TWT loaded with nonuniform periodic lossy dielectric rings is presented in this paper. The gyro-TWT is operating in the circular TE01 mode at the fundamental cyclotron harmonic, and driven by a 60 kV, 8-A gyrating electron beam with velocity ratio 1.2. Hot test results were: 1) maximum peak output power 112 kW; 2) 69.7-dB saturated gain; and 3) 23.3% efficiency at 93.5 GHz. The measured bandwidth with peak power greater than 90 kW is about 4 GHz in the range of 93–97 GHz. The hot test results show excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction. The potential backward wave oscillations involving the spurious modes TE11, TE21, and TE02 are effectively suppressed by the nonuniformly loaded periodic lossy dielectric rings. The W -band gyro-TWT is zero-drive stable at the operating points. It demonstrates that a nonuniform loaded lossy dielectric structure is excellent for suppressing potential spurious oscillations.

Design and Experimental Study of a High-Gain W -Band Gyro-TWT With Nonuniform Periodic Dielectric Loaded Waveguide

Distributed lossy dielectric is of considerable interest for high-power milli- and submillimeter radiation sources, particularly for gyrotron traveling wave tubes (gyro-TWTs). The analytical design and experiment of a Q-band gyro-TWT loaded with periodic lossy dielectric rings operating in the circular TE01 mode at the fundamental cyclotron harmonic are presented. The gyro-TWT is driven by a 70-kV 10-A helical electron beam with a velocity ratio of 1.0. Hot test performs maximum peak output power of 152 kW, 41-dB saturated gain, and 21.7% efficiency at 47.6 GHz. The measured bandwidth over 100 kW is at the range of 47-49 GHz. PIC simulation and large-signal prediction show excellent agreements to the hot test results. The potential backward wave oscillation interactions involving the spurious modes TE11, TE21, and TE02 are effectively suppressed by loading lossy dielectric rings periodically. The Q-band gyro-TWT is zero-drive stable at the operating points, which demonstrates that loading lossy dielectric is excellent to stabilize the spurious oscillations. Moreover, the designs of magnetron injection gun, interaction circuits, and input and output structures are also achieved to satisfy the requirements.

Design and Experiment of a Q-band Gyro-TWT Loaded With Lossy Dielectric

A pulse prototype of a W-band TE01 mode gyrotron traveling-wave tube (gyro-TWT) amplifier is designed, and it features high gain and broadband capabilities. The TE01 mode input coupler is constructed by mounting a sapphire pill-box window onto a Y-type mode converter. The high power output window will employ a triple-sapphire-disc configuration to achieve return loss lower than -30 dB over a bandwidth of 8 GHz. To suppress the spurious oscillations and realize high-average power potential, a new lossy ceramic material with weak electric conductivity is loaded in the TE01 mode cylindrical interaction waveguide. The loss-free output taper is carefully optimized to suppress oscillations and maintain broadband amplification. Employing a magnetic injection gun of beam voltage 70 kV, beam current 3 A, pitch factor 1.5, and axial-velocity spread 5%, theoretical investigation predicts that the gyro-TWT amplifier is of excellent performance, which includes being driven to saturation with input power Pin <; 0.4 W, highest efficiency of 32.4%, and the bandwidth of 4.2 GHz with output power exceeding 50 kW.

Design of a W-band Gyro-TWT Amplifier With a Lossy Ceramic-Loaded Circuit

This report gives an update of the worldwide experimental achievements in the development of long-pulse gyrotron oscillators for fusion plasma heating, plasma diagnostics and materials processing. In addition, this work gives a short overview of the present development status of coaxial-cavity multi-megawatt gyrotrons, gyrotrons for technological and spectroscopy applications, relativistic gyrotrons, quasi-optical gyrotrons, cyclotron autoresonance masers, gyro-amplifiers, gyro-BWO's, free electron masers and of vacuum windows for such high-power mm-wave sources.

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State-of-the-Art of High Power Gyro-Devices and Free Electron Masers. Update 2011. (KIT Scientific Reports ; 7606)

Experimental results are presented on the first W-band gyrotron Traveling-Wave Tube (gyro-TWT) developed to exploit the 94 GHz atmospheric window for long-range, high-resolution radar applications. The gyro-TWT is designed to operate in the higher order TE01 mode and is driven by a 100 kV, 5 A electron beam with a pitch angle of v⊥/vz=1 and velocity spread of Δvz/vz=5%. Large-signal simulations predict 140 kW output power at 92 GHz with 28% efficiency, 50 dB saturated gain, and 5% bandwidth. The stability of the amplifier against spurious oscillations has been checked with linear codes. To suppress the potential gyro-BWO interactions involving the TE02, TE11, and TE21 modes, the interaction circuit with a cutoff frequency of 91 GHz has been loaded with loss so that the single-path, cold-circuit attenuation is 90 dB at 93 GHz. A coaxial input coupler with 3% bandwidth is employed with a predicted and measured coupling of 1 dB and 2 dB, respectively. The operating voltage is limited to below 75 kV because of oscillations encountered at higher voltages in this initial embodiment. Preliminary test at Vb=60 kV and Ib=3.7 A yielded 59 kW saturated output power at 92.2 GHz with 42 dB gain, 26.6% efficiency, and a 3 dB bandwidth of 1.2 GHz (1.3%).

W. C. Tsai

Papers

Theory and experiment of a 94 GHz gyrotron traveling-wave amplifier