Recent Advance in Long-Pulse HPM Sources With Repetitive Operation in S-, C-, and X-Bands

Recent experimental results of three kinds of long-pulse high-power microwave (HPM) sources operating in S-, C-, and X-bands are reported. The difficulties in producing a long-pulse HPM for the O-type Cerenkov HPM source were analyzed theoretically. In S- and C-bands, single-mode relativistic backward-wave oscillators were designed to achieve long-pulse HPM outputs; in X-band, because of its shorter wavelength, an O-type Cerenkov HPM source with overmoded slow-wave systems was designed to increase power capacity. In experiments, driven by a repetitive long-pulse accelerator, both S- and C-band sources generated HPMs with power of about 2 GW and pulse duration of about 100 ns in single-shot mode, and the S-band source operated stably with output power of 1.2 GW in 20-Hz repetition mode. The X-band source generated 2 GW microwaves power with pulse duration of 80 ns in the single-shot mode and 1.2 GW microwave power with pulse duration of about 100 ns in the 20-Hz repetition mode. The experiments show good performances of the O-type Cerenkov HPM source in generating repetitive long-pulse HPMs, especially in S- and C-bands. It was suggested that explosive emissions on surfaces of designed eletrodynamic structures restrained pulse duration and operation stability.