A 100 mW, 0.670 THz power module

Abstract

A 0.670 THz Power Module based on a vacuum electronic (VE) power amplifier and a solid-state power amplifier (SSPA) has produced >;100 mW, operating from 0.640-0.685 THz in a bread-board demonstration. The driver amplifier is a power-combined, MMIC SSPA module based on InP HEMT technology. The compact VE power amplifier is based on a DRIE-fabricated folded waveguide slow-wave circuit, together with a high current density thermionic cathode and a single-stage, depressed collector for increased overall device efficiency. The VE power amplifier achieved 21.5 dB of gain, 15 GHz of operational bandwidth, a collector efficiency of 93% and an overall device efficiency of 0.44%.