Particle-in-cell simulation on effect of collector outgassing on relativistic backward oscillator

Abstract

The relativistic backward-wave oscillator has been considered to be one of the most promising high-power microwave devices. As the output microwave power is further increased, the breakdown phenomenon inside the relativistic backward-wave oscillator, including the collector pole, becomes more and more serious, which eventually leads to the pulse shortening, becoming a biggest obstacle to the development of the device with high power and high energy. Such a problem has also been one of the important issues which constrain its development. Based on the 2.5D particle-in-cell simulation software, i.e. UNIPIC-2D developed by our research group, in this paper the dynamic gassing model is used to study the effects of the relativistic backward-wave oscillator collector breakdown process and the guiding magnetic field under different outgassing coefficients. The result of particle simulation demonstrates that as the electrons continue to bombard the collector, the surface pressure of the collector is increased, and gas ionization occurs. The generated plasma enters into the slow-wave structure along the guiding magnetic field, thus affecting the beam-wave interaction process and causing the output power to drop. With the increase of the gas release coefficient, the pulse shortening phenomenon becomes more and more obvious. In the case of low guiding magnetic field, the breakdown and pulse shortening are alleviated.