Wide Band Interaction Impedance and Mode Excitation in Glide Symmetric Double Corrugated Waveguides for mm-wave TWTs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the interaction impedance and mode excitation in glide symmetric double corrugated waveguides for millimeter-wave TWTs, highlighting the BT Glide structure's wide band impedance and reduced oscillation risk.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of glide symmetric waveguides, identifying the BT Glide structure as optimal for millimeter-wave TWT amplification due to its wide band impedance and mode properties.

Findings

BT Glide waveguide exhibits wide band interaction impedance.

Backward mode in BT Glide is not z-polarized, reducing oscillation risk.

Glide symmetry leads to nondispersive dispersion diagrams.

Abstract

Focusing on traveling wave tube (TWT) applications, the interaction impedance between an electron beam and electromagnetic modes in three distinct, but related, corrugated waveguides that operate at millimeter waves is investigated together with the role of glide symmetry. Two waveguide structures have glide symmetry, and the irreducible Brillouin zone is related to half of the period, leading to a wide band linearity, i.e., nondispersive, property of the dispersion diagram. The investigation on the modes with longitudinal electric field that can be excited shows that the bottom-top glide (BT Glide) symmetric corrugated waveguide has a wide band interaction impedance, hence it is a good candidate for millimeter wave TWT amplifiers. Furthermore, the backward electromagnetic mode in such BT Glide slow wave structure is not $z$ polarized, eliminating the {risk} of backward wave oscillations.