Experimental demonstration of a high-power slow wave electron cyclotron maser utilizing corrugated metal structure

High-power microwave (HPM) sources based on electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) such as gyrotrons are fast wave devices and velocity component of electron beam perpendicular to guiding magnetic field is the origin of HPM. HPM sources based on Cherenkove mechanism are slow wave devices and can be driven by a beam without initial perpendicular velocity. The authors present here the experimental result that seems to be the first demonstration of high-power slow wave electron cyclotron maser (ECM) consisting of a large diameter sinusoidally corrugated metal waveguide driven by a beam with predominant parallel velocity. The designed size parameters of slow wave structure (SWS) are as follows: average radius 30 mm, corrugation pitch 3.4 mm, its amplitude h = 1.7 mm and total length 238 mm. They use an annular beam with radius 26.3 mm, energy 55 keV, current 200 A in their experiment. Expected Cherenkov oscillation frequency of TM01 mode is 20 GHz. The observed high-power microwaves can be quantitatively explained by a backward wave oscillation with Cherenkov mechanism enhanced by positive feedback of anomalous Doppler slow cyclotron wave. In conclusion, the slow wave ECM presented here will be a competitive candidate against gyrotrons for generating multi-MW millimeter microwaves available in fusion plasma research