Study of Traveling Wave Tube With Folded-Waveguide Circuit Shielded by Photonic Crystals

Abstract

The design and simulated performance of a traveling-wave tube (TWT) constructed by combining a folded-waveguide (FW) slow-wave circuit with arrays of 2-D photonic crystals (PhC) are presented. Numerical results reveal that the Pierce interaction impedance of the FW circuit with PhCs is similar to the circuit without PhC arrays. The gain, output power, and efficiency of TWTs with and without PhCs are also similar when the circuit dimensions are identical; however, the TWT with PhCs can filter out nonoperating modes, which may improve the stability of the circuit shielded with PhCs when compared to the same circuit shielded by metal walls.