Computer-aided analysis and design of corrugated TE11 to HE11 mode converters in highly overmoded waveguides

A theoretical and experimental study of TE11-to-HE11 mode conversion in highly oversized waveguides is given. The balanced HE11 hybrid mode propagating in a circumferentially corrugated circular waveguide is in many respects ideal for effective electron cyclotron resonance heating of fusion plasmas with high-power gyrotrons. At an aperture antenna it exhibits desirable radiation characteristics such as linear polarization with very low cross polarization and axisymmetric power distribution with low sidelobe levels. This Gaussian-like mode can be generated from a TE11 mode by means of a corrugated mode converter in which the depth of the annular slots is tapered gradually from one-half to one-quarter wavelength. Computer-aided optimization of converter length, shape of corrugations, and of non-linear slot depth variation for 28 GHz- and 70 GHz-transducers was achieved with a scattering matrix formalism employing the modal field expansion technique (Modular Analysis Concept). In both cases the measured conversion efficiency of (98.5±0.5)% and the experimental values of the maximum cross polarization (below –28 dB) are in very good agreement with the predicted values. High-power operation was successfully demonstrated using pulsed 28 GHz- and 70 GHz-VARIAN gyrotrons (200 kW).