Design and Experiment of a Hollow Beam Electron Optics System for Ka-Band Extended Interaction Klystrons

In this article, the design and experiment of a hollow electron beam (HEB) electron optics system (EOS) for Ka-band extended interaction klystrons (EIKs) are presented. To realize the fast switch of the current emission at a low cutoff voltage, an electron gun with two focus electrodes (FEs) is chosen. The emitting surface of cathode is a ringed spherical surface. The first focus electrode (FE1) is around the cathode, and the second focus electrode (FE2) is set in the central hole of the cathode. The current emitted from the cathode surface is about 2A, when the operating voltage is 25 kV. Three simulation codes, Egun, Superfish, and CST, are used for designing the electron gun and the permanent magnet focusing system (PMFS). Some sensitivity analyses with respect to the PMFS's critical parameters are presented. The simulation shows the dc beam transmission is 100%. The electron beam, confined by 6000 Gauss uniform field, propagates through the drift tube of 37 mm with good laminarity and small ripple. The emission current can be suppressed when the voltage of the FEs is -3.4 kV. According to the results of simulation, the Ka-band EIK had been constructed and the hot-test experiments had been fulfilled in succession. The experimental results exhibit that the dc beam transmission is about 99% and the beam can sustain 98% transmission at high frequency (HF) operation. In addition, the output power is higher than 8 kW in the bandwidth of over 100 MHz.