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Focus of High-Power Microwaves with positive and negative zone plate to

increase the receiving power

Article  in  Current Applied Physics · June 2021

DOI: 10.1016/j.cap.2021.06.006

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Current Applied Physics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cap

Focus of high-power microwaves with positive and negative zone plate to

increase the receiving power in axial virtual cathode oscillator
Jung Hyun Jang 1, Sohail Mumtaz 1, Seok Woo Lee, Do-Young Kim, Jun Sup Lim,
Nagendra Kumar Kaushik, Eun Ha Choi *
Department of Electrical and Biological Physics, Kwangwoon University, Seoul, South Korea

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: We investigated an axial vircator, constructed in a pulsed power generator, called Chundoong, and simulated by a
Vircator three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation code, MAGIC. We attempted to increase the receiving power of
Particle-in-cell generated microwaves by directing them at a desired focal point. To do so, a positive and negative zone plates
MAGIC
(ZPs) are constructed at main frequency 3.5 GHz, and its focal length is 18.8 cm. The power generated from the
Zone plate
Virtual cathode
virtual cathode is 0.72 GW, from which 24.6 kW is received by receiving antenna without a ZP. The receiving
Conversion efficiency power increased significantly to 45.4 kW (92.6%) and 47.5 kW (84.5%) with positive and negative ZPs,
respectively. In addition, both positive and negative ZPs have similar focusing properties for the generated
microwaves. The ZP contributes significantly to increasing the receiving power. These findings might be useful
for real applications to increase the receiving power at a desired focal point.

1. Introduction
A high-power microwave (HPM) usually refers to a microwave with a
peak power exceeding 100 MW and operating frequency between 0.3
and 300 GHz [1,2]. HPM has been extensively used for many purposes,
including domestic, industrial, and medical, depending on its specific
frequency and peak power [1,3–7]. The generation of HPM has got
significant attention from researchers during the last few decades. Many
HPM sources exists [1], from which a virtual cathode oscillator (called
as vircator) is thought to be a favorable oscillator type among other HPM
oscillators, because it has the ability to operate at high frequencies,
generate high power of microwaves, and it is simple in the structure.
In its basic structure, a vircator consists of an emitter cathode
(physical cathode), anode (meshed), and a virtual cathode (VC). For
operation, an intense relativistic electron beam (IREB) is released from
the cathode surface and accelerated towards the anode position. Owing
to the transparency of the anode mesh, the IREB pass through it. If the
IREB current surpasses the space charge limiting current, a dense VC is
formed inside the drift tube region whose potential is almost similar to
the physical cathode [8,9]. The HPM can be generated by the collective
oscillations of the entire VC in space and time, electron reflexing be­
tween the physical cathode and VC, or combination of both factors [8,9].
VC is a source for the generation of the HPM. However, it has a major
disadvantage of a low efficiency in converting the IREB energy into
microwave radiation energy [1,10].
Rising the conversion efficiency of a vircator is an dynamic and
active research field [11]. Many research groups worldwide are
applying suitable techniques to conventional device structures [12–20].
The efficiency has been improved and is of significant importance in the
coaxial design of a vircator [11]. A common method is to ease the IREB
along the z-direction inside the drift region by supplying a strong lon­
gitudinal magnetic field [12,13,20,21]. This technique helps to reduce
the radial loss of the IREB at the grounded wall. However, the results
later indicated that the presence of an external strong longitudinal
magnetic field reduces the peak power of HPM owing to a large energy
spread of beam electrons [14]. This is because the lifetime of beam
electrons to stay in the VC increases owing to the external magnetic
field. It is important to increase the ability of HPM generation from a VC
by applying various types of resonators, reflectors, and electrodes. A
three-cavity resonator was simulated in an axial vircator to increase the
generation efficiency, showing significant improvement [22]. A multi­
stage axial vircator by installing multiple reflectors was studied and
achieved up to 21% efficiency in simulation [22,23,24]. To rise the
frequency and boost the output power, the density of electrons in the VC

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ehchoi@kw.ac.kr (E.H. Choi).
1
These authors equally contributed to this work.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cap.2021.06.006
Received 18 January 2021; Received in revised form 7 May 2021; Accepted 9 June 2021
Available online 25 June 2021
1567-1739/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Korean Physical Society. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
J.H. Jang et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic of axial vircator in 3D PIC simulation.
should be bigger. For that, a coaxial conical electrode structure was
proposed to focus the amount of electrons at a single position to rise the
density of VC [25]. In our laboratory, simulations (numerical) and ex­
periments with various kind of modification in a standard vircators have
also been conducted [26–35]. Increasing the collecting power has also
been an vital factor in achieving a high intensity HPM at a single point in
real experiments.
Fig. 2. (a) The real image of pulsed power generator, chundoong, and (b) is the schematic view of vacuum diode region and experimental setup with a ZP. The
position of the ZP fixed at 67 cm away from the anode and the position of receiving antenna was changed at z-axis, x-axis, and y-axis to observe the focal point.
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Current Applied Physics 29 (2021) 89–96
In this study, we attempted to focus the HPM at a focal point by using
positive zone plate (PZP) and a negative zone plate (NZP). This study
marks the first time a NZP was used to focus the HPM. Theoretically, PZP
and NZP have the similar focusing capability, which was verified for
HPM during this experiment. In addition, the position of the VC and the
mode of the generated HPM were observed during the simulation by
using three-dimensional particle-in-cell (3D PIC), called a MAGIC.
2. Methods
2.1. Simulation
We built an axial vircator with the help of 3D PIC simulation code in
MAGIC. Fig. 1 presents the configurations of the device used during
simulation. The aluminum cathode is 4.5 cm in radius and is covered with a
layer of velvet. This velvet layer facilitates for the smooth emission of beam
from the surface of physical cathode. In this work, the thickness of the
velvet layer was adjusted as 1.8 mm. The electron emission radius was set
to 3.5 cm. The anode foil is 10 cm in radius and 1 μm in thickness, which
allows the beam electrons to pass through. The distance between the
cathode and anode (A-K gap) was 9 mm. The inner radius waveguide 10 cm
and it is 25 cm long. The beam characteristics adjusted as 300 kV and 10 kA
for voltage and current, respectively. The simulation time is 20 ns with the
mesh size (dz = 0,1 cm, dr = 0.5 cm, and dth = 0.05 rad). For the emission
of IREB in simulation, a command, named as EXPLOSIVE, was used.
J.H. Jang et al.
Fig. 3. Schematic and real image of the PZP and NZP. The mark R1 = 12.7 cm, is the radius of the first zone and 18.8 cm is the focal length of PZP and NZP at the
frequency of 3.5 GHz.
2.2. Experiment
A device called Chundoong shown in Fig. 2 (a), was used for the
generation of HPMs. This device is able to generate IREB that can
approach a maximum diode current of 88 kA, diode voltage of 600 kV,
and pulse duration of 60 ns when the impedance of the pulse forming
line (PFL) matches that of the field emission diode within the vacuum
region [33]. Fig. 2 (b) shows schematic view of the vacuum diode region
of the device and the experimental setup with a ZP. The physical cathode
is aluminum based with a diameter of 9 cm. The cathode surface was
covered with a layer of velvet. This velvet layer facilitates an electron
emission. By contrast, the anode is stainless-steel mesh with a radius of
10 cm. Owing to the mesh structure, most of the anode is transparent
(~70%) for beam and allows the emitted electrons to pass through. The
frequency and output power of the HPM strongly depend on cathode and
anode spacing. Therefore, the AK-gap spacing was fixed at 9 mm. The
waveguide is 25 cm in length, and its inner radius is 10 cm. The diode
chamber and waveguide regions were evacuated at a vacuum pressure of
1.5 × 10− 5 torr before conducting the experiment. To maintain the
vacuum pressure, the output window was sealed with a 1.5 cm thick
acryl. It helps to avoid the surface discharge due to high electric field
and also it allowed the generated HPMs to radiate outside. Two probes
C-dot and B-dot were used, the probe C-dot is situated in the PFL isolator
section to determine the voltage, and the probe B-dot is positioned in the
vacuum region (diode region) to measure the current [26].
To focus the generated HPM, PZP and NZP were constructed with
aluminum for the generated frequency of the microwaves. The ZP was
constructed as transparent (empty) and opaque (metal) periodical structure
regions, where the transparent zones are constructively interfere with the
HPM to focus them at a single point to increase the collecting power. Fig. 3
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Current Applied Physics 29 (2021) 89–96
(a)–(d) shows the schematic and real images of the designed ZPs for this
experiment. A schematic and real image of the PZP are shown in Fig. 3 (a)
and Fig. 3 (b), respectively, and those for a NZP are given in Fig. 3 (c) and 3
(d). The ZPs were constructed to fit the dominant frequency of 3.5 GHz. The
frequency was calculated by the fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the HPM
real signal, which is shown in Fig. 8 (a). The wavelength of HPM is
calculated by c = fVC λ, where c is the speed of light, fVC is the main fre­
quency of HPM generated by VC, and λ is the wavelength which is calcu­
lated as 8.6 cm. The focal length f of the positive and negative ZPs was
calculated using a well-known formula f = R2n /nλ [36], where λ indicates
the wavelength of the HPM for the dominant frequency, R is the radius of a
particular zone of the ZP, and n is an integer (n = 1, 2, 3, ...). The radius of
the first zone, as indicated by R1 in Fig. 2, is 12.7 cm, and the focal length
fof the PZP and NZP is 18.8 cm. The radii of each zone were calculated
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
using the formula Rn = nfλ for the design of the ZP. After setting the ZP
at a particular position, the distance from VC to the ZP is marked as “a,” and
ZP position to the antenna is marked as “b” follows the Lens formula 1a +
1
= 1f [36]. The generated HPM received by a receiving antenna (WR-284).
b
The position of receiving antenna was changed by moving it along the
z-axis. The position when receiving power is at maximum is called the focal
point of the z-axis and is selected as the reference point, from which the
antenna was moved vertically and horizontally along the y-axis and x-axis,
as indicated in Fig. 2. During the experiment, all electrical signals were
detected using an oscilloscope (model: Wave Master 8620A) which is
placed in a dark room (electromagnetically shielded). Therefore, the HPM
power Pinput is calculated using the following formula:
Posc
dB = 10log ​ (1)
Pinput
J.H. Jang et al. Current Applied Physics 29 (2021) 89–96

Fig. 4. Simulation results: (a) device view after the emission of electrons at 20 ns, and (b) phase space of electrons verifying the regions of the real cathode and VC
formed at 20 ns. The VC position behind the anode is similar to an AK-gap distance of 9 mm.

where Posc is the received power at the oscilloscope in voltage form and a straight direction (z-axis) [37]. Hence, the electrons accumulated in
Pinput is the HPM power generated from the VC. The generated power the form of an electron cloud behind the anode foil, which is known as a
VC. Here, the estimated value of ISCL for a 275 kV solid beam with a
Pinput was estimated by using the total attenuation (− 118.88 dB form VC
radius of ro = 4.5 cm, moving in a circular waveguide with the radius of
to oscilloscope) in equation (1), and sensitivity K-factor (134 mV/mW)
R = 10 cm, can be estimated as ISCL ≅ 1.26 ​ kA by using the Bogdan­
of the crystal diode detector. The power attenuation from VC to the
kevich–Rukhadze formula [8]. In this study, Ibeam = 10 kA indicates the
position of the receiving antenna is − 44.67 dB, which is used to calcu­
beam current used. Hence, the necessary condition Ibeam ≫ISCL is satis­
late the amount of receiving power with and without the ZP. For the
factory for the formation of the VC.
estimation of total attenuation at 3.5 GHz, a network analyzer (model:
Fig. 4 (b) shows the phase portrait of the IREB and VC formation after
E5071C, Agilent Technologies) was used to calibrate from VC to oscil­
20-ns simulation time, where x-axis represents the axial position, z for
loscope. The total attenuation rate was used to calculate the power of the
the propagating IREB and y-axis represents their momentum, Pz. The
HPM at VC.
face of the physical cathode was positioned at z = 210 mm and anode
foil is located at z = 219 mm, as shown earlier in the device schematic
3. Results and discussions
view in Fig. 1. It was found that the transmitted electrons are accumu­
lated at nearly 228 mm at 1.4 ns simulation time. These accumulated
3.1. Simulation results
electrons known as VC. Therefore, it was found that the position of the
VC is approximately 9 mm behind from the anode foil position, which is
An axial vircator was constructed and studied numerically using a 3D
almost equal to the A-K gap spacing. The phase portrait characteristics of
PIC simulation code to observe the formation of the VC, and the fre­
IREB and position of the VC inside the diode region are similar to the
quency, power, and mode of the generated HPMs. Fig. 4 shows the nu­
previous reported results [28,32,37–40].
merical simulation results, with Fig. 4 (a) showing the device view after
Fig. 5 shows the electric field and frequency of the microwaves
the emission of the electrons after a 20-ns simulation time. During the
during the simulation, where Fig. 5 (a) gives the profile of the axial
simulation, when a beam of electrons was emitted from the cathode
electric field Ez at a simulation time of 20 ns, Fig. 5 (b) shows the fre­
surface by applying the EXPLOSIVE command, it accelerated toward the
quency, which is calculated by the FFT of Ez , Fig. 5 (c) gives the counter
anode foil, which was transparent for the electrons. The major part of
shape of the radial electric field Er , and Fig. 5 (d) shows the frequency
the IREB transmit through the anode foil because of its transparency and
calculated by the FFT of Er . It was found that Ez is dominant over Er ,
entered the waveguide region. This IREB was stopped behind into the
where the amplitude of Ez = 4 MV/m, which is clearly greater than the
waveguide when the current of IREB Ibeam exceeded the critical current
amplitude of Er = 0.2 MV/m (Ez ≫Er ). The Ez is higher than Er because of
(space-charge limiting current) ISCL. The IREB was pinched by a strong
the axial oscillation of electrons and VC in axial vircator. The dominant
self-poloidal magnetic field which cause to stop the IREB to propagate in
frequency of the generated microwaves was found to be 3.47 GHz,

92
J.H. Jang et al.
Fig. 5. Simulation results: (a) axial electric field Ez and (b) frequency calculated using the FFT of Ez , (c) radial electric field Er and (d) frequency calculated using the
FFT of Er . It was found that Ez is dominant with an amplitude of 4 MV/m, which is significantly greater than the amplitude of Er = 0.2 MV/m. The dominant
frequency of the generated microwaves was found to be 3.47 GHz.
which shows a strong agreement with the frequency of experiment given
in Fig. 8.
The emission mode of the HPM was determined by the contour view
of the electric and magnetic fields observed in simulation at the end of
the waveguide. Fig. 6 shows the intensity and directional profiles of the
detected fields at a simulation time of 20 ns, where Fig. 6 (a) vector
electric field and Fig. 6 (b) vector magnetic field. The length of the arrow
gives the field intensity, and the arrow direction represents the direction
of the field. In this study, the mode of HPM from the axial vircator was
expected to be TM01 according to the azimuthal symmetry of the mag­
netic field and radial view of the electric field.
3.2. Experimental results
In this study, a pulse power generator called Chundoong was used for
the operation of an axial vircator for the generation of HPMs. Fig. 7
shows the oscilloscope traces for the voltage and current. Here, the
voltage peak is 275 kV, measured using a C-dot probe. The current
reached a maximum value of 10 kA, which was measured using a B-dot
probe. The oscillation in the waveforms of the diode voltage occurred
after rising to the first peak owing to a mismatch of the impedance be­
tween the vacuum diode and the PFL of the device, which reasons the
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Current Applied Physics 29 (2021) 89–96
voltage to oscillate with time after rising the first peak. By contrast, IREB
bombardment at the anode mesh cause the formation of plasma elec­
trons, these electrons reason the fluctuation in the current after its first
peak. The oscillating characteristics of voltage and current do not
change the peak values because the reflection time of the signal owing to
an impedance mismatch and the build-up times of the plasma electrons
is extremely long compared to the peak arrival times.
Fig. 8 (a) shows the waveforms of the real signal of HPM, and Fig. 8
(b) gives the amplitude of the oscillating frequencies, obtained by the
FFT of the HPM real signal (Fig. 8 (a)). VC fluctuations and the reflexing
electron exhibit a wide range of frequencies, where the dominant fre­
quency of the HPM was found to be 3.5 GHz. It is found that the
dominant frequency during the experiment and simulation are identical
to each other, as shown in Fig. 5. To increase the receiving power, a PZP
and a NZP were used with a focal length of 18.8 cm. The output power of
the microwave was 0.72 GW, which was originally generated from the
VC. Because of the power loss of − 44.67 dB from the VC to the antenna
position, the receiving power is reduced and the maximum received
power without a ZP is 24.6 kW. By fixing the ZP at a particular position,
the generated HPMs focused on a single focal point to increase the
receiving power by diffraction. Both PZP and NZP contribute to
increasing the receiving power by focusing the HPMs at a focal point and
J.H. Jang et al. Current Applied Physics 29 (2021) 89–96

Fig. 6. Profiles of the vector fields, where (a) and (b) gives the electric field and Fig. 8. Traces of oscilloscope: (a) real microwave signal and (b) frequency of
(b) vector magnetic field at the end of waveguide at 20 ns. The emission mode the generated microwaves from the VC. The magnitudes of oscillating fre­
of HPM is TM01 which is thought to be dominant. quencies were obtained by taking the FFT of the real signal of HPM during the
experiment; the main oscillating frequency of HPM was found to be 3.5 GHz.

show similar trends and focusing properties. Fig. 9 (a) shows the results
obtained during the experiment when the ZP is fixed at 67 cm away from
the anode and the receiving antenna is moved along the z-axis. Initially,
an arbitrary focal point is calculated by using the Lens formula, and it is
considered a reference point (0 cm). The receiving antenna is then
moved 5 cm toward and away from the ZP. The negative sign in Fig. 9 (a)
indicates that the antenna is moving toward the ZP, and the positive sign
shows that the antenna is moving away from the ZP. By fixing the po­
sition of the receiving antenna at the maximum z-axis, the antenna is
moved 5 cm to the left (indicated with a negative sign) and right
(indicated with a positive sign) sides along the x-axis, as shown in Fig. 9
(b). Finally, at the maximum points of the z- and x-axes, the receiving
antenna is moved 5 cm up (indicated with negative sign) and down
(indicated with a positive sign) along the y-axis, and the results obtained
are as shown in Fig. 9 (c). It was found that the receiving power is
increased by both PZP and NZP with a similar trend. The ZP contributes
significantly to focus the HPMs, and the receiving power is increased up
to 45.4 kW with a PZP and 47.5 kW with a NZP. The receiving power
capability increased by 84.5% with the PZP and 92.6% with the NZP.
Fig. 7. Oscilloscope waveforms: (a) diode voltage with it peak at 275 kV and
(b) diode current with the peak value of 10 kA.

94
J.H. Jang et al.
Fig. 9. Received power of the microwave without a ZP and with PZP and NZP: the received power when receiving antenna is moved along the (a) z-axis, (b) x-axis,
and (c) y-axis. The maximum received power without a ZP is 24.6 kW, whereas both PZP and NZP contribute well to the increase in receiving power by focusing them
at a focal point of up to 45.4 and 47.5 kW, respectively.
4. Conclusion
In this study, an axial vircator was studied numerically using a 3D
PIC simulation code, MAGIC, and experimentally using a pulse power
generator called Chundoong. The dominant frequency of the generated
HPMS is 3.5 GHz, which shows good agreement with the simulation
frequency. Two ZPs, positive and negative, were designed for the
dominant frequency to focus the emitted microwaves at a focal point to
increase the receiving power and observe the focusing effect of PZP and
NZP. The focal length of the ZP was 18.8 cm for the dominant frequency.
The maximum received power without a ZP is 24 kW, which is increased
to 45.4 kW and 47.5 kW with PZP and NZP, respectively. In addition, the
receiving power respectively increased by 84.5% and 92.6% with PZP
and NZP. It was found that the both ZPs contributes to an increase in the
receiving power. It was also concluded that the PZP and NZP have
similar focusing properties for the generated HPM.
Funding
Funding was received for this work.
All of the sources of funding for the work described in this publica­
tion are acknowledged below:
We acknowledge support from the leading Foreign Research Institute
Recruitment Program through the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) funded by the Korea government (MSIT) under the grant
number (NRF-2016K1A4A3914113) and in part by Kwangwoon Uni­
versity, Seoul, Korea, 2021.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
We acknowledge support from the leading Foreign Research Institute
Recruitment Program through the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) funded by the Korea government (MSIT) under the grant
number (NRF-2016K1A4A3914113) and in part by MSIT (Ministry of
Science and ICT), under the ITRC (Information Technology Research
Center) support program (IITP-2020-0-01846) supervised by the IITP
(Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning &
Evaluation)”, Korea. Also it is partially supported by Kwangwoon Uni­
versity 2021, Seoul, Korea, 2021.
95
Current Applied Physics 29 (2021) 89–96
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