A novel slotted helix slow-wave structure for high power Ka-band traveling-wave tubes

A novel slotted helix slow-wave structure （SWS） is proposed to develop a high power, wide-bandwidth, and high reliability millimeter-wave traveling-wave tube （TWT）. This novel structure, which has higher heat capacity than a conven- tional helix SWS, evolves from conventional helix SWS with three parallel rows of rectangular slots made in the outside of the helix tape. In this paper, the electromagnetic characteristics and the beam-wave interaction of this novel structure operating in the Ka-band are investigated. From our calculations, when the designed beam voltage and beam current are set to be 18.45 kV and 0.2 A, respectively, this novel circuit can produce over 700-W average output power in a frequency range from 27.5 GHz to 32.5 GHz, and the corresponding conversion efficiency values vary from 19% to 21.3%, and the maximum output power is 787 W at 30 GHz.