Rapid startup in relativistic backward wave oscillator by injecting external backward signal

Abstract

Investigation on accelerating the building up of oscillation and achieving a rapid startup in powerful relativistic backward wave oscillator by injecting a weak external backward signal is carried out in this paper. Synchronizing the signal with the backward wave excited by intense electron beam extracting with slow wave structure, the initial noise is greatly reduced and mode competition is restrained. The analysis is demonstrated by high power X-band backward wave oscillator experiment, in which a plasma switch is designed to realize the backward signal injection. The results show that the significant reduction of microwave output delay is attained and the start time of oscillation is ahead of 10 ns with the energy conversion efficiency increases about 62%.