(TWT)

 The traveling wave tube is a form of thermionic

valve or tube that is still used for high power
microwave amplifier designs.
 The travelling wave tube can be used for
wideband RF amplifier designs where even now it
performs well against devices using newer
technologies. TWTs are used in applications
including broadcasting, radar and in satellite
transponders. The TWT is still widely used despite
the fact that semiconductor technology is
advancing all the time.
 low-power twt for receivers 
occurs as a highly sensitive, low-noise and
wideband amplifier in radar equipments

high-power twt VTR 572B Russian low-power twt UV-1B (cyrillic: УВ-1Б)

 high-power twt for transmitters 
these are in use as a pre-amplifier for high-
power transmitters.
 Origen from thermionic valve or vacuum tube
development
 The tube itself was born out of the need for
efficient high power microwave RF amplifiers in
the Second World War.
 TWT was actually invented and first developed by
an engineer named by Rudolf Kompfner at a
government based British radar research
laboratory.
 basic TWT theory and the practical device.
 Both the TWT theory and the tube itself were later
refined by Kompfner and John Pierce at Bell Labs
in the USA.
The travelling wave tube, TWT, can be split into a
number of separate major elements:
 Vacuum tube
 Electron gun
 Magnet and focusing structure
 RF input
 Helix
 RF output
 Collector

Cutaway view of a TWT. (1) Electron gun; (2) RF

input; (3) Magnets; (4) Attenuator; (5) Helix coil;
(6) RF output; (7) Vacuum tube; (8) Collector.
 The Traveling Wave Tube (twt) is a high-gain, low-noise,
wide-bandwidth microwave amplifier.
  It is capable of gains greater than 40 dB with bandwidths
exceeding an octave. (A bandwidth of 1 octave is one in
which the upper frequency is twice the lower frequency.) 
 Traveling-wave tubes have been designed for frequencies as
low as 300 megahertz and as high as 50 gigahertz. 
 The twt is primarily a voltage amplifier. The wide-
bandwidth and low-noise characteristics make the twt ideal
for use as an rf amplifier in microwave equipment.
 TWT amplifiers and they are typically capable of developing
powers of up to 2.5 kW. For narrowband RF amplifier
applications it is possible to use coupled cavity TWTs and
these can deliver power levels of up to 15 kW.
 An octave means here that the upper cutoff
frequency is the double value of the lower
cutoff frequency. 
 Coupling
anode
resonators collector
helix

attenuating
electron gun cover electron beam

input output

Physical construction of a twt

 electron-beam
RF- input
bounching

influence of-
attenuating cover

RF induced into Helix

 The electron- beam bounching already starts at the
beginning of the helix and reaches its highest
expression on the end of the helix. If the electrons of
the beam were accelerated to travel faster than the
waves traveling on the wire, bunching would occur
through the effect of velocity modulation. Velocity
modulation would be caused by the interaction
between the traveling-wave fields and the electron
beam. Bunching would cause the electrons to give up
energy to the traveling wave if the fields were of the
correct polarity to slow down the bunches. The energy
from the bunches would increase the amplitude of the
traveling wave in a progressive action that would take
place all along the length of the twt.
 The helix may be replaced by some other slow
wave structure such as a ring-bar, ring loop, or
coupled cavity structure. The structure is
chosen to give the characteristic appropriate to
the desired gain/bandwidth and power
characteristics.
 A Ring Loop TWT uses loops as slow wave
structure to tie the rings together. These devices
are capable of higher power levels than
conventional helix TWTs, but have significantly
less bandwidth of 5…15 percent and lower cut-off
frequency of 18 GHz.
 The feature of the ring-loop slow wave structure is
high coupling impedance and low harmonic wave
components. Therefore ring-loop traveling wave
tube has advantages of high gain (40…
60 Decibels), small dimension, higher operating
voltage and less danger of the backward wave
oscillation.
 The Ring-Bar TWT has got characteristics likely
the Ring-Loop TWT. The slow wave structure
can be made easier by cut-out the structure of a
copper tube.
 The Coupled-cavity TWT uses a slow wave structure of
a series of cavities coupled to one another. The
resonant cavities are coupled together with a
transmission line. The electron beam (shown in figure 9
as red beam) is velocity modulated by an RF input
signal at the first resonant cavity. This RF energy
(displayed as blue arrow) travels along the cavities and
induces RF voltages in each subsequent cavity.
 If the spacing of the cavities is correctly adjusted, the
voltages at each cavity induced by the modulated beam
are in phase and travel along the transmission line to
the output, with an additive effect, so that the output
power is much greater than the power input.
vacuum tube - vacuum that is required for the
operation of the TWT.
first element-electron gun comprising primarily of a
heated cathode and grids.
This produces and then accelerates a beam of electrons
that travels along the length of the tube.
electrons are made to travel as a tight or narrow beam
along the length of the travelling wave tube
 A helix is an essential part of the traveling
wave tube. It acts as a delay line, in which the
RF signal travels at near the same speed along
the tube as the electron beam. The
electromagnetic field due to the current in the
helix interacts with the electron beam, causing
bunching of the electrons in an effect known as
velocity modulation and the electromagnetic
field resulting from the beam current then
induces more current back into the helix. In this
way the current builds up and the signal is
therefore amplified.