Design and simulation of a high efficiency relativistic backward wave oscillator

Abstract

An X-band overmoded Relativistic Backward Wave Oscillator (RBWO) with non-uniform Slow Wave Structure (SWS) and Resonant Reflector (RR) is designed to increase the beam-wave interaction efficiency of RF and slow space charge wave. The problem of pulse shortening is overcome by using overmoded SWS to some extent. The 3D simulations of the RBWO show that with a diode voltage of 600kV and beam current of ∼4.3kA, a microwave power of 1.40GW at 9.24GHz is obtained. The power conversion efficiency of more than 50% is obtained due to the use of overmoded non-uniform SWS as compared with conventional RBWO. © 2017 IEEE.