Study of Beam–Wave Interaction in a Sub-THz Traveling Wave Tube with a Converging Sheet Electron Beam Focused by a Uniform Magnetic Field

Abstract

A traveling-wave tube (TWT) with a sheet electron beam and staggered double-grating slow-wave structure (SWS) is a promising high-power, wideband terahertz amplifier. In such tubes, electron-optical systems (EOSs) with a converging sheet beam are mostly used, which allow a reduction of the cathode load, increase the lifetime, and enable operation in a continuous-wave (CW) mode. This paper presents the results of a 3D particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation of the 0.22 THz TWT driven with a converged sheet beam, which is compressed to less than 100 μm thickness in the EOS with a magnetically shielded cathode. The beam with high compression has a significant transversal velocity spread and essentially non-uniform current density distribution over the cross-section. These factors significantly affect the beam–wave interaction. We compare the performance of the TWT driven by the compressed sheet beam and by an idealized initially rectilinear beam without any velocity spread.