Design of a high-power, high-gain, 2nd harmonic, 22.848 GHz gyroklystron

In this paper we consider the design of a four-cavity, high-gain K-band gyroklystron experiment for high gradient structure testing. The frequency doubling gyroklystron utilizes a beam voltage of 500 kV and a beam current of 200 A from a magnetron injection gun (MIG) originally designed for a lower-frequency device. The microwave circuit features input and gain cavities in the circular TE011 mode and penultimate and output cavities that operate at the second harmonic in the TE021 mode. We investigate the MIG performance and study the behavior of the circuit for different values of perpendicular to parallel velocity ratio (α = V⊥ / Vz). This microwave tube is expected to be able to produce at least 20 MW of power in 1μs pulses at a repetition rate of at least 120 Hz. A maximum efficiency of 26% and a large signal gain of 58 dB under zero-drive stable conditions were simulated for a velocity ratio equal to 1.35.