Design of the RF Circuit for a Coaxial Cavity High-Power Multiple-Beam Klystron

This paper presents the design methodology and detailed design of the interaction circuit for use in an L-band 10-MW MBK, which operating in the fundamental mode at a center frequency of 1.3 GHz. Coaxial cavities are adopted to give adequate space for the use of multiple large cathodes, which has a low cathode loading and thereby facilitate a long lifetime. The emphasis for the present design is on efficiency and high-peak output power. The initial design was carried out using the large signal code KLY. To calculate the beam-wave interaction characters conveniently with cavities present, we developed a 2-D single-beam equivalent design methodology, in which the multitunnel coaxial cavities are replaced by the conventional single-tunnel cylindrical cavities with transformed RF parameters. The 3-D PIC simulations with actual coaxial cavity geometries are carried out at last to check on the large signal and the 2-D PIC simulations. The 3-D simulation results indicate that the equivalent design methodology is effective. The final RF circuit consists of six coaxial cavities including a second-harmonic cavity to reduce the device length. The circuit has a predicted gain of 50 dB at a peak pulsed output power of 10.4 MW with a corresponding electronic efficiency of more than 68%. The design and test results of the output system with two windows are also presented.