JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 107, 093301 2010

High power microwave generation from coaxial virtual cathode oscillator

using graphite and velvet cathodes
Rakhee Menon, Amitava Roy,a S. K. Singh, S. Mitra, Vishnu Sharma, Senthil Kumar,
Archana Sharma, K. V. Nagesh, K. C. Mittal, and D. P. Chakravarthy
Accelerator and Pulse Power Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai 400 085, India

Received 16 February 2010; accepted 19 March 2010; published online 3 May 2010
High power microwave HPM generation studies were carried out in KALI-5000 pulse power
system. The intense relativistic electron beam was utilized to generate HPMs using a coaxial virtual
cathode oscillator. The typical electron beam parameters were 350 kV, 25 kA, and 100 ns, with a few
hundreds of ampere per centimeter square current density. Microwaves were generated with graphite
and polymer velvet cathode at various diode voltage, current, and accelerating gaps. A horn antenna
setup with diode detector and attenuators was used to measure the microwave power. It was
observed that the microwave power increases with the diode voltage and current and reduces with
the accelerating gap. It was found that both the peak power and width of the microwave pulse is
larger for the velvet cathode compared to the graphite cathode. In a coaxial vircator, velvet cathode
is superior to the graphite cathode due to its shorter turn on time and better electron beam
uniformity. 2010 American Institute of Physics. doi:10.1063/1.3399650
I. INTRODUCTION

High power microwaves HPMs were generated and

characterized for various applications.1,2 HPM sources are
being developed for applications in plasma heating, particle
acceleration, high-power radar, and many other industrial
and military fields.2 Among several types of pulsed highpower microwave generators is the virtual cathode oscillator
vircator. The vircator is considered to be very attractive due
to its high-power capability, frequency tunability, and device
simplicity.24 In a vircator, an electron beam is emitted from
cathode and accelerated through a semitransparent anode. In
a virtual cathode device, there are two possible sources of
microwave radiation; one from electrons oscillating between
the real cathode and virtual cathode and the other from the
oscillating electron cloud or the virtual cathode itself. When
the current exceeds the space charge limited current of the
drift tube, a space charge cloud virtual cathode forms behind the anode which reflects a certain part of the electron
beam. The electron beam interacts with the axial electric
field of the waveguide mode. In this interaction, if the phase
relation is such that the electromagnetic field gains energy
from the modulated current, the result is field amplification
by the virtual cathode oscillation. In this process very high
power microwaves can be generated from the vircator device.
The efficiency of converting an electron beam to microwaves generally does not reach sufficient levels; it is only
about a few percent. The enhancement in efficiency of conversion from an electron beam to HPM was highlighted as an
important field of study in recent HPM research.5 Efforts
were made to increase the conversion efficiency of a vircator
a

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail:

aroy@barc.gov.in.

0021-8979/2010/1079/093301/6/$30.00

using many variations. In the laboratory, axial-type and

coaxial-type diode structures were studied using numerical
and experimental methods.
The physical basis of the interaction process in a typical
coaxial vircator was reported using MAGIC, a threedimensional particle-in-cell PIC computer code.6 It is
shown that by reducing the influence of stray electrons6 the
output power of the vircator can be increased to as much as
52%. The electromagnetic modes generated in coaxial vircator were studied in detail in Ref. 7 and indicate that for most
cases, the TE11 mode dominates the output power in the
coaxial vircator.6 Numerical simulation studies of a coaxial
virtual cathode oscillator with and without a bar reflector was
also reported using three-dimensional PIC code, MAGIC.8 The
microwave peak power with the bar reflector was found to
increase by 1.5 times. Using the bar reflector, the power conversion efficiency from the electron beam to the microwave
increased8 from 28.9% to 45.4%.
The cathode material is found to play a major role in
enhancing the output power of the vircator device. A comparison of results from repetitive-microwave generation experiments with velvet and graphite emitters in an axial vircator configuration shows significant differences in the time
for the onset of microwave radiation and statistical variation
in the time of microwave emission for the two materials.9
The experimental results show that the graphite cathode is
superior to the velvet cathode in durability and shot-to-shot
reproducibility, during rep-rate operation, and hence is a
promising cathode material for the magnetically insulated
line oscillator MILO device used for rep-rate conditions.10
Quality and uniformity of the electron beam are important
factors in context to improved HPM generation.11,12 It was
shown that the beam-to-microwave efficiency can be increased by improving the electron beam quality with the use
of a carbon fiber cathode.11
For designing a coaxial vircator, it is useful to know the

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FIG. 1. Schematic of the coaxial vircator.

dependency of HPM power on the diode current and voltage

for a given geometry. Although, several theoretical and experimental studies were carried out with the coaxial vircator,
no studies were reported on the dependency of the HPM
power on diode voltage and current.
Experiments were performed using the pulsed power
generator KALI-5000 kiloampere linear injector: maximum
output voltage 1 MV, output impedance 20 , and pulse
duration 100 ns to generate and measure HPM signal from a
coaxial vircator device. KALI-5000 consists of a Marx generator, a Blumlein pulse forming line and an electron beam
diode with voltage and current diagnostics. In the past,
KALI-5000 system was utilized to generate and measure
flash x-rays.13 The KALI-5000 system is now operational
with a gas prepulse switch.14,15 This article reports on the
experimental studies conducted on the generation of HPM
from a coaxial vircator for various anode-cathode AK gaps
using both graphite and polymer velvet as a cathode material.
II. KALI-5000 PULSE POWER SYSTEM AND COAXIAL
VIRTUAL CATHODE OSCILLATOR

The KALI-5000 pulse power system developed at

APPD, BARC, consists of a Marx generator 1.5 MV, 25 kJ,
a Blumlein pulse forming transmission line 1 MV, 5 kJ, a
gas SF6 spark gap to generate the high voltage pulse and a
gas prepulse switch to minimize the prepulse voltage on the
electron beam diode. An explosive emission diode was used
to generate intense relativistic electron beams. The schematic
of the coaxial vircator is shown in Fig. 1. The coaxial vircator is essentially a cylindrical diode and consists of a
graphite/velvet cathode and a copper mesh anode in the coaxial configuration. A resistive CuSO4 voltage divider and a
self integrating Rogowski coil were used to measure the diode voltage and current pulses, respectively. The inductive
correction due to the transmission line inductance few nanohenries from the resistive divider to the cathode edge is less
than a few percent since the dI / dt is typically 0.080.34
kA/ns in the present experiment. A B-dot probe is also in-

stalled in the diode chamber to measure the diode current.

Next to the copper mesh anode, is connected a coaxial virtual
cathode oscillator chamber length 50 cm, diameter 90 mm
for microwave generation and a radiating horn antenna 28
cm length, 30 cm radiating aperture diameter. A vacuum
level of the order of 5 105 mbar was maintained in the
diode chamber as well as the vircator chamber by a diffusion
pump backed by a rotary pump. In the present experiment
the AK gaps were set to 12.5, 15, and 17 mm for graphite
cathode and 15 mm for velvet cathode.
A standard transmitting-receiving system2 was used for
HPM power measurement. The system consists of double
ridged horn antenna, attenuators, and a zero bias Schottky
diode detector. The attenuators are used to reduce the power
level below the power rating of the diode detector. All HPM
power measurements were carried out with the receiving antenna placed at a distance of 4.3 m from the vircator window.
A shielded room located at about 7 m from the KALI-5000
system was used to house the signal recorders. For each shot,
the beam parameters voltage and current were recorded using a 500 MHz, 2 GS/s digital storage oscilloscope. The
microwave detector output was recorded using 200 MHz, 1
GS/s oscilloscope. Various components used for HPM diagnostics were calibrated from few ms to ns using a standard
modulated rf source.
The HPM power measurements depends on the basic
radar equation2
PT = PR4r/2/GRGT ,

where the subscript T refer to the transmitter, the subscript R

refer to the receiver, P is the power, G is the antenna gain, r
is the transmitter to receiver separation distance, and is the
free space wavelength.

III. HPM GENERATION

A. With a graphite cathode

HPM generation experiments were carried out using a

graphite cathode for three different AK gaps. The diode voltage and current waveforms for 15 mm AK gap is shown in
Fig. 2a. It is seen from the Fig. 2a that the voltage and
current peaks do not coincide with each other. A typical recorded HPM waveform is shown in Fig. 3a. The peak diode
voltage and current for this HPM pulse was 306 kV, 20.5 kA,
respectively, for AK gap of 15 mm. It was observed that the
peak HPM power is highest at 12.5 mm AK gap compared to
15 and 17 mm AK gaps. There is variation in the peak power
of the microwave signal on shot to shot basis. The Fig. 4
shows the measured microwave output power at various AK
gaps and diode voltages and currents. It is seen that the
maximum power is obtained at 12.5 mm gap and reduces
with increase in the AK gap. The Fig. 5a displays HPM
power versus diode voltages for 12.5 mm AK gap. Although
there is quite a bit of variance in the HPM power in a given
voltage range, the average HPM power appears to be increasing as diode voltage increases. The diode current obtained at
12.5 mm gap is also higher and the HPM power increases
with the increase in the current as shown in Fig. 5b.

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FIG. 2. Color online Diode voltage and current waveform at 15 mm radial

AK gap. a With a graphite cathode. b With a velvet cathode.

The Fig. 6a shows experimentally obtained diode current as a function of diode voltage and is compared with the
current calculated from LangmuirBlodgett law Eq. 5
given in Ref. 16. A good fit with the experimental curve was
obtained assuming ho = 1.3 cm and v p = 2.4 cm/ s.
The Fig. 7 shows HPM power for various diode voltages
and currents at 17 mm AK gap. It is seen that the HPM
power increases with increase in the diode voltage and current. It is also observed that the HPM could be generated
only when the peak diode voltages and currents are
300 kV and 20 kA, respectively.

J. Appl. Phys. 107, 093301 2010

FIG. 3. HPM waveform at 15 mm AK gap. a For a graphite cathode. b

For a velvet cathode.

A typical HPM waveform recorded by the diode detector

is shown in Fig. 3b. It is seen that the HPM pulse width of
the velvet cathode is larger than that for the graphite cathode
and the pulse width varied from 55 to 85 ns. The diode peak

B. With a polymer velvet cathode

With the polymer red velvet cathode, AK gap was set at

15 mm. The diode voltage and current waveforms for 15 mm
AK gap is shown in Fig. 2b. One can see that as compared
with the graphite cathode, current started rising immediately
after the application of the accelerating pulse, for the velvet
cathode. It is interesting to note that the voltage and current
peaks coincide with each other and the current peaks earlier
at 70 ns as compared to the graphite cathode at
90 ns. This is due to the fact that the turn on time for the
velvet cathode is lower than that for the graphite
cathode.1720

FIG. 4. Color online Power vs AK gap for graphite cathode with various
diode voltage and current. Various shades in the graph represents various
shots taken at a same AK gap but with different diode voltages and currents.

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Menon et al.

FIG. 5. HPM power at 12.5 mm AK gap with a graphite cathode. a For

various diode voltages. b For various diode currents.

voltage and current for this HPM pulse was 312 kV and 24
kA, respectively. The diode voltage ranged from 245 to 312
kV and diode current from 17 to 24 kA. The average pulse
width for velvet cathode is always higher than for the graphite cathode. The average peak power is also higher for velvet
cathode compared to graphite cathode at the same accelerating gap.
The Fig. 6b shows experimentally obtained diode current as a function of diode voltage and is compared with the
current calculated from LangmuirBlodgett law Eq. 5
given in Ref. 16. A good fit with the experimental curve was
obtained assuming ho = 1.5 cm and v p = 2.2 cm/ s. One can
see that the area under the voltage-current V-I curve for
velvet cathode is smaller than that of the graphite cathode.
This is due to the fact that the turn on time of the velvet
cathode is much shorter than that of the graphite cathode.
The initial emission length and the plasma expansion velocities for the graphite and velvet cathodes are not significantly
different.
The Fig. 8 displays the HPM peak power measured at
the antenna mouth for various diode powers at 15 mm AK

J. Appl. Phys. 107, 093301 2010

FIG. 6. Color online A good fit to the experimental diode current has been
obtained a With a graphite cathode for 15 mm AK gap from Eq. 5 in the
Ref. 16 assuming ho = 1.3 cm and v p = 2.4 cm/ s. b With a velvet cathode
for 15 mm AK gap from Eq. 5 in the Ref. 16 assuming ho = 1.5 cm and
v p = 2.2 cm/ s.

gap with velvet and graphite cathode. It can be seen that the
peak power measured with the velvet cathode is larger than
the graphite cathode and also no HPM power was measured
for graphite cathode for diode voltage and current 300 kV,
and 19 kA, respectively, whereas HPM could be generated
for velvet cathode at a diode voltage 245 kV and current
17 kA. For both the types of cathodes HPM power increases with the increase in the diode voltage and current.
Higher power associated with the velvet cathode may be attributed to the lower turn on time and better electron beam
uniformity.21
It was shown that the delay time for the initial microwave emission with respect to the application of the accelerating pulse is an important factor for obtaining higher HPM
peak power.22 The microwave power peaks when the microwave emission coincides with the high diode-beam power. If
the microwave ignition time is further away from the peak
diode voltage, the microwave emission power decreases be-

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cause of the reduced beam power.22 Therefore, the delay in

microwave ignition time has a profound effect on the peak
microwave power. Shorter turn on time for the velvet cathode reduces the delay in the microwave ignition time with
respect to the application of accelerating pulse thereby increasing the HPM power.
IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

HPMs were generated from the KALI 5000 pulse power

system using a coaxial vircator. HPM power was measured
for various AK gaps and for two different cathode materials.
The typical electron beam parameters were 350 kV, 25 kA
with a few hundreds of ampere per centimeter square current
density. The HPM peak power is maximum at 12.5 mm AK
gap. A comparison of measured diode current with the
LangmuirBlodgett law reveals that the plasma expansion
velocity and the initial emission length of the graphite and
velvet cathodes are similar. After the beginning of the accelerating pulse, the diode current rises earlier for velvet cathode due to its lower turn on time. It is found that the HPM
pulse width of the velvet cathode is larger than the graphite
cathode. No HPM power could be measured for graphite
cathode with diode voltage 300 kV, and current 19 kA,
whereas, HPM could be generated for velvet cathode at a
diode voltage 245 kV and current 17 kA. For both the
types of cathodes HPM power increases with the increase in
the diode voltage and current. Higher HPM power was obtained with polymer velvet cathode as compared with the
graphite cathode. This is attributed to the shorter turn on time
and better electron beam uniformity obtained using polymer
velvet cathode. Experimental results indicate that the polymer velvet cathode is superior to the graphite cathode when
HPM peak power and pulse width are concerned.
FIG. 7. HPM power at 17 mm AK gap with a graphite cathode. a For
various diode voltages. b For various diode currents.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Dr. L. M.

Gantayet, Director BTD group, BARC, and Dr. A. K. Ray,
Ramanna Fellow, BARC for their constant encouragement
and support. We would like to place on record our sincere
thanks to Mr. S. R. Raul, Mr. Sachin Patil, and Mr. N. K.
Lawangare for technical support.
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