PPPS-2013: High pulsed power compact antenna for high power microwaves applications

THALES Communications & Security have developed, under CEA contract, a new concept of compact antenna able to radiate very high pulsed power levels in C-band and X-band. These antennas could be powered by relativistic sources such as magnetrons or Backward Wave oscillators (BWO). This antenna principle is based on a network of helixes, whose dimensions are linked to the gain and central frequency at aim. Pulsed power - typically a few hundreds of MW - feeds the antenna thanks to a circular waveguide in TM₀₁ mode. These works have been successfully verified with a first example of such an antenna, developed in X-Band and tested with a BWO delivering 10 ns long and 500 MW peak pulses, repeated at 100 Hz.