High power harmonic gyro-amplifiers for millimeter-wave radar

Advances in electron gun and circuit technology have made it possible to design compact high power (multi-kW wave, tens-kW peak) gyro-amplifiers operating at millimeter wave frequencies employing conventional magnet technology. The devices being developed have the potential to increase the power available to the millimeter wave system designer by over an order of magnitude in a configuration compatible with system deployment. To demonstrate the viability of the technical approach, a focused two-phase, five-year ARPA/Tri-Service program has been established under the Vacuum Electronics Initiative to develop a high performance millimeter wave amplifier operating at 95 GHz. The program progress to date is reviewed, followed by a discussion of the millimeter wave gyro-peniotron amplifier experiment underway at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)