Electron Devices Simulation with

CST STUDIO SUITE

Richard Cousin, CST

www.cst.com | CST EuMW 2011 Presentations| October 2011 | 1

Overview

Brief History, principles of Vacuum Tubes

Electron Guns (Generation of electron beam sources)
Amplifiers (TWT)
Oscillators (Magnetron)
Relativistic devices
High Power Microwave tubes
VIRCATOR
MILO

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Brief History of Vacuum Devices

90s-00

Relativistic Devices

1970

Conventional
Devices

1942

MILO-RKO-RELTRON
HPM (VIRCATORS-BWO)

TWT (R. KOMPFNER)

1940

MAGNETRON (BOOT, RANDALL, WILLSHAW)

1939
KLYSTRON (VARIAN Brothers)
1907
1896
1895

1883

TRIODE (Lee DE FOREST)

First Wireless Telegraph (G. MARCONI)

X-Rays (W. ROENTGEN)

Thermo-electronic
emission (T. A. EDISON)

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Radiology
Light emission

Power Device Technology

107

Vacuum Devices

Average Power (W)

106
105

Klystron

Gridded Tubes

Gyrotron

CFA

104

Helix TWT

103

HEMT

102

SIT

TWT
FET

10

MESFET

BJT

10-1
10-2

FEL
BWO

Solid State Devices

.1

10

100

Frequency (GHz)
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FEL

1,000

10,000

100,000

Classification of Electron Devices

Emission process
Pulse duration

Conventional Devices
(Amplifiers Oscillators)

Relativistic Devices
(HPM)

Thermionic

Explosive

Continuous
Pulse > 100 s

Transient
100s of ns

Output Power

< 100 MW

100 MW < P < 10 GW

Applications

Industrial, Medical, Space

(embedded devices)

Military
Research activities

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Principle of Vacuum Tubes

A vacuum tube is an electron device in which an electron beam is
interacting with an electromagnetic wave

The energy is transferred from the e-beam to the EM-wave

Dissipated
Power

Power Source
E-beam creation

Interaction Process

RF in

RF out

(Amplifiers)

(Amplifiers - Oscillators)

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Electron Gun: Generation of e-beams

Pierce Gun

Magnetron Injection Gun

(MIG)

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Cold emission
generating intense
hollow beams

Electron Gun: PIERCE

Thermionic emission (I = V3/2)
Space charge and Temperature limited
Solid beam formation
Focusing electrodes
Low current emission (< 1A)

Space charge iterations

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Electron Gun: Cold emission

Space charge limited emission
Hollow beam formation
Focusing electrodes
High current emission (several kA)

Space charge iterations

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Amplifiers
(Traveling Wave Tubes TWT)

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Amplifiers: Principles
Longitudinal static magnetic field applied (e-beam focusing)
Interaction into Slow Wave Structures (SWS)
The electron velocity modulation creates bunches
The electron kinetic energy is converted into RF-Energy
The Static B-Field doesnt contribute to the interaction process

B
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Slow Wave Structure geometry

50 mm

Helical structure of 40 turns

The first and 4 last turns are embedded in resistive couplers
Turns 4-36 constitutes the linear gain region
The RF signal is introduced at turn 4 and analyzed through the
different voltage probes
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Eigenmode solver @ 5 GHz

Two different algorithm (AKS, JDM)
Display the 3D-EM field inside the structure
Take into account the lossies
Perform Q-factor calculations

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Study of 1 period of the SWS

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Dispersion Diagram

BW

TW

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Synchronism conditions in the SWS

Evidence of e-beam modulation

If electron velocity = phase velocity,

Ve > V

no global energy transfer occurs

because the energy transferred to the
EM wave amplified is equal the energy
transferred to the electron beam from
the EM slow wave.
If the electron velocity is slightly

over the phase velocity of the wave

some EM power is transferred mainly
from the e-beam to the RF-structure
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Evidence of the Travelling Wave

Amplification process at 5 GHz

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More complex TWT geometry

Particle Beam

RF In

Slow Wave Structure

50 period folded waveguide for broadband
travelling wave tube application

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RF Out

Particle Trajectory (hot test)

Simulation performed with the self-consistent particle in

cell (PIC) solver of CST PARTICLE STUDIO
Interaction of wave and particle beam becomes evident
due to velocity modulation towards TWT end

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Output signals (hot test)

GAIN

RF In

Simulated

20.24 dB

Pierce small signal theory

20.9 dB

RF Out

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Oscillators
(Magnetrons)

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Oscillators: Principles

RF Window

Crossed-Field Devices
The External Static B-Field is perpendicular to
the E-Field components
The synchronism condition is defined by the
geometry which fixes the single operating
frequency
The electron drift velocity (E/B) equals the
phase velocity of the slow EM-wave
The static B-field participates to the interaction
process
The interaction is leading to so-called spokes
formation

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Magnetron Structure
Dimensions:
rc=0.57 cm ra=1.92 cm rv=3.42 cm
h = 7.2 cm
Angle = 20
Number of Vanes = 6
Modified Version of the MIT A6
Magnetron
Small aspect ratio rc/(ra-rc) = 0.43
- Mode favourable
[1] J. Benford, J. A. Swegle, E. Schmiloglu, High Power Microwaves, 2nd Edition, Taylor & Francis, 2007.
[2] A. Palevsky and G. Bekefi, Microwave Emission from Pulsed Relativistic Beam Diodes. II. The
multiresonator magnetron., Phys. Fluids, 22, 986, 1979.
[3] H.W. Chen, C. Chen, Numerical Studies of Relativistic Magnetrons, PFC/JA-92-34, 1992.
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Cold Test: Interaction prediction

Eigenmode Simulation
-Mode

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2-Mode

Applied Voltage & Resulting E-Field

Applied Voltage

Potential

E-Static Field

Voltages are applied as CST EM STUDIO

sources
Corresponding routines are called
automatically internally by PIC solver

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Predefined B-Field

The Static B-Field is calculated to allow magnetic insulation and

synchronism condition in the magnetron structure
There exists a cutoff condition to allow magnetron oscillation

2m V r
1
BH 2
e ra r

2
c
2
a

B BH

0.17 T

leads to the magnetron

oscillation

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PIC Simulation of Closed Structure

Field recorded with field probe in one position

Stabilized Signal
One distinct peak @ Mode
fhot = 3.7 GHz
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PIC Simulation of Closed Structure

Particle Trajectory
Spoke Formation according to -Mode Interaction

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Magnetron: Solver LogFile

New Feature V.2012
GPU acceleration with PIC solver

Number of Meshcells

231.040

Number of Particles
max

7e5

Number of Particles
steady state

2.5e5

Time CPU

2h 52m 36s

Time GPU

43m 39s

Speed Up Factor
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3.95

Relativistic Devices
(Vircator & MILO)

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Relativistic Devices for HPM applications

Technologies based on Classical devices with higher output power (range
of GW output power)
Usually driven by high voltage generator (hundreds of kVs)

Explosive emission cathode (velvet-like coating)

Limited microwave pulse (hundreds of ns)
Operating frequency in GHz frequency range

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Vircator structure
waveguide port
for power
monitoring
electric
field
probe

emission surfaces

Particle Trajectory

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Power>1GW

t/ns

E-field spectrum/[kV/cm]

Output power/GW

A. Santos, B.S. Arajo Filho, J. J. Barroso, H. S.

Maciel, Microwave Generation by a Virtual
Cathode Enclosed in a Circular Cavity Placed
Transversally in a Cylindrical Waveguide,
Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Vaccum
Electronics Conference (IVEC), Monterey, USA, 2008

E-field at
probe/[kV/cm]

Vircator results

t/ns

Peak@2.1GHz

f/GHz
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Magnetically Insulated Line Oscillator (MILO)

Similar to a linear
relativistic magnetron
Anode SWS
(4 coupled cavities)

Collector

Cathode
[1] R. Cousin et al, Gigawatt Emission from a 2.4 GHz compact Magnetically Insulated Line
Oscillator (MILO), IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 35, No. 5, Oct. 2007
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Slow Wave Structure Eigenmodes

Er

Ez

Pi-mode configuration at 2.45 GHz

Transverse Magnetic mode (TM01)
Possible interaction with an e-beam propagating along the
cathode structure
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Slow Wave Structure Eigenmodes

Er

Ez

Pi-mode configuration at 2.68 GHz

Hybrid Electro-Magnetic mode (HEM11)
Possible interaction with an e-beam propagating along the
cathode structure in Pi-mode
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Dispersion Diagram

Frequency

TM02
HEM21
HEM11
TM01

Phase

Phase velocity depends only on the geometry parameters.

In an oscillator particles have to be in exact synchronism. The main Mode
interaction depends on the geometry
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Diagnostics and Sources

Voltage
monitor

Current monitor

Field probes

Excitation function
Voltage source
excites a ramped
voltage
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Waveguide port
for absorption

MILO Operating Frequency

Signals recorded
with field probes

50 ns needed for stable RF oscillations

2 compeeting modes as predicted in
Cousin et al
Main interaction in PI-mode of the
TM01 mode
Smaller peak belongs to PI-mode
configuration of HEM11 mode
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MILO oscillating regime

MILO oscillation at 2.48 GHz

on first TM mode
First TM mode cutoff at 1.68 GHz
TM extraction through the output
waveguide
2.6 GW peak output power
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Particle Trajectory
Spoke formation
according to PI-Mode

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Summary/Conclusions
CST STUDIO SUITE can handle

Electron Devices simulation

Amplifiers/Oscillators
Cold and hot test facilities
GPU acceleration with PIC solver (New in V.2012)

Only one model necessary which can be exchanged by

CST EM STUDIO for analysis of static EM fields
CST PARTICLE STUDIO for any kind of particle tracking
CST MICROWAVE STUDIO for dispersion analysis and Sparameter simulations of couplers and tubes
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