title: Design and microwave test of an ultrawideband input/output structure for sheet beam travelling wave tubes.
abstract: Broadband operation is of great importance for the applications of travelling wave tubes such as high-data communication and wideband radar. An input/output (I/O) structure operating with broadband property plays a significant role to achieve these applications. In this paper, a Y-type branch waveguide (YTBW) coupler and its improvements are proposed and utilized to construct an extremely wideband I/O structure to ensure the broadband operation for sheet beam travelling wave tubes (SB-TWTs). Cascaded reflection resonators are utilized to improve the isolation characteristic and transmission efficiency. Furthermore, to minimize the reflectivity of the port connected with the RF circuit, wave-absorbing material (WAM) is loaded in the resonator. Simulation results for the YTBW loaded with WAM predict an excellent performance with a 50.2% relative bandwidth for port reflectivity under -15 dB, transmission up to -1.5 dB, and meanwhile isolation under -20 dB. In addition, the coupler has a relatively compact configuration and the beam tunnel can be widened, which is beneficial for the propagation of the electrons. A Q-band YTBW loaded with two reflection resonators is fabricated and microwave tested. Vector network analyzer (VNA) measured results have an excellent agreement with our simulation, which verify our theoretical analysis and simulation calculation.
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
authors.forename: Guoxiang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
authors.forename: Jianxun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
authors.forename: Guo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
authors.forename: Liya
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: North Electronic Device Research Institution, P.O. Box 947, Beijing 100141, China.
authors.forename: Shafei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang