Investigations on a microfabricated FWTWT oscillator

A vacuum tube oscillator fabricated by the deep etch X-ray lithography: lithographie, galvanoformung, abformung (LIGA) process was successfully developed for the first time. For the proof-of-concept experiment involving a delayed feedback oscillator, a folding-waveguide traveling-wave tube (FWTWT) was fabricated by computer numerical control milling in advance. With a 12.4-kV and 150-mA electron beam, a Ka-band FWTWT amplifier shows a linear gain of 25 dB and a bandwidth of 10%. Applying a delayed feedback scheme, the threshold feedback strengths for the onset of oscillation and for self-modulation were measured to be -30 dB and -16 dB, respectively. The optimum value of the feedback strength for the single-frequency oscillation at 32.5 GHz was about -18 dB with a net electronic efficiency of 6%. The LIGA-fabricated FWTWT circuit was constructed by a lithographic process using the synchrotron X-ray source at the Pohang Light Source. The resulting accuracy and average surface roughness were less than 10 and 1 μm, respectively. The LIGA-fabricated Ka-band amplifier shows a linear gain of 15 dB and bandwidth of 1.7% with a 12.4-kV, 47-mA electron beam. The threshold for the onset of oscillation was about -11 dB and the optimum value of feedback strength for a single frequency oscillation at 35 GHz with a net electronic efficiency of 3.5% was about -8 dB.