Electromagnetic wave generator using secondary electron multiplication
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of microwave devices, relates to vacuum electronic devices such as klystrons, traveling wave tubes, backward wave tubes and the like, and particularly relates to an electromagnetic wave generator utilizing secondary electron multiplication.
Background
The vacuum electronic device comprises a klystron, a traveling wave tube, a backward wave tube and the like, a hot cathode is adopted to emit an electron beam, the electron beam is subjected to speed modulation in a resonant cavity or a slow wave structure, the fast electron of the electron beam subjected to speed modulation catches up with the slow electron of the electron beam subjected to speed modulation in the transmission process to form a clustered electron beam group, and the clustered electron beam group gives energy to electromagnetic waves so as to form amplified or oscillated electromagnetic wave output. When electron beams are transmitted in vacuum electronic devices, magnetic field focusing is needed, and the focusing is generally carried out by adopting a solenoid or a periodic permanent magnetic field.
The vacuum electronic device has the advantages of high output power, high working frequency, radiation resistance and long service life, so the vacuum electronic device has extremely wide application in the aspects of wireless communication, satellite communication, radio and television, aerospace, meteorological radar, Global Positioning System (GPS), deep space exploration, medical accelerators, missile guidance, confidential links, battlefield monitoring, electronic countermeasure and the like, is particularly indispensable in various fighters, bombers, unmanned planes, ships, tanks and satellite systems, is a heart of modern high-end electronic information equipment, and has irreplaceable effect.
With the development of society and the progress of science and technology, the application range and depth of vacuum electronic devices in various fields are continuously increased, and simultaneously, the fields also put forward higher and higher requirements on the aspects of volume, gain, power, frequency, bandwidth and the like of a vacuum amplifier: radar, electronic countermeasure systems require higher power, wider bandwidth, and higher gain amplifiers; medical imaging and large data transmission require amplifiers of higher frequency, wider bandwidth, and smaller volume; in the aspect of terahertz science and technology, a high-frequency and high-power amplifier capable of filling a terahertz gap is urgently needed; in the aspects of satellite communication and deep space exploration, a vacuum amplifier with smaller volume, higher power and higher gain is required; especially, after the Elomas proposes a star chain concept, tens of thousands of small satellites will fly to the space in the future for years, and nearly ten thousand satellites are replaced every year, so that a communication system formed by nearly one hundred thousand amplifiers is urgently needed, and the novel satellite-borne vacuum amplifier is required to be small in size, light in weight, high in gain, simple in structure and capable of being produced in batches. In a word, the development of a novel vacuum electronic device which is small in size, light in weight, high in gain, high in power, wide in frequency band, simple in structure and capable of being produced in batches has important scientific significance and urgent practical requirements.
The existing vacuum electronic devices such as traveling wave tubes, klystrons, magnetrons, gyrotrons and the like, namely a high-power electromagnetic wave generator adopts a hot cathode, the cathode needs to be additionally heated, the emitted electrons have low density, a magnetic field needs to be focused, and the power of the generated electromagnetic waves is low.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to overcome the defects of the prior art and provides an electromagnetic wave generator utilizing secondary electron multiplication, which does not need magnetic field focusing and simultaneously improves the power and gain of an output electromagnetic wave signal.
To achieve the above object, the present invention provides an electromagnetic wave generator using secondary electron multiplication, comprising:
a cathode for emitting electrons to form an electron beam;
it is characterized by also comprising:
one or two secondary electron multiplying sheets, wherein a plurality of micro-channels with the diameter of micrometers are arranged along the thickness direction (electron transmission direction), the inner walls of the micro-channels are coated with secondary electron multiplying films (micro-channel inner wall films), the height or the diameter of each micro-channel is far smaller than the thickness of the secondary electron multiplying sheet, namely the length of the micro-channel, electrons can collide for many times on the inner walls of the micro-channels, and tens of secondary electrons (the secondary electron emission coefficient is generally far higher than 3) can be generated by each collision;
the electron beam is emitted from a cathode and modulated by the first slow wave structure or resonant cavity to generate primary speed and density modulation, and then enters the secondary electron multiplying piece, the electrons collide for many times in a microchannel to generate electron multiplication of tens of thousands of times, namely the number of tens of thousands of times of electrons is increased, namely the current is increased by tens of thousands of times, when the electrons enter the secondary electron multiplying piece, the density modulation is already performed, and the density modulation still exists after the current is increased; the secondary electron multiplying piece is connected with a second section of slow wave structure or resonant cavity, and the electron beam current with density modulation can excite the electromagnetic wave to generate output; if the gain or the output power does not meet the requirement, or the current of the electron beam can be modulated again by utilizing the second-section slow-wave structure or the resonant cavity, and then the secondary electron multiplying piece and the third-section slow-wave structure or the resonant cavity are connected as output.
The object of the invention is thus achieved.
The invention uses the electromagnetic wave generator of secondary electron multiplication to divide the slow wave structure or the resonant cavity into two sections or three sections, and the secondary electron multiplication sheet is vertically inserted between the front section and the rear section. The secondary electron multiplication piece is provided with a plurality of micro-diameter micro-channels along the thickness direction (electron transmission direction), the inner wall of the micro-channel is coated with a secondary electron multiplication film (micro-channel inner wall film), the height or diameter of the micro-channel is far smaller than the thickness of the secondary electron multiplication piece, namely the length of the micro-channel, electrons can collide with the inner wall of the micro-channel for multiple times, and each collision can generate tens of secondary electrons (secondary electron emission coefficient, generally far higher than 3), so that tens of thousands of times of electrons can be multiplied, namely the number of tens of thousands of times of electrons is increased, namely tens of thousands of times of current is increased. The secondary electron multiplying piece is connected with a second section of slow wave structure or resonant cavity, and the electron beam current with density modulation can excite the electromagnetic wave to generate output; if the gain or the output power does not meet the requirement, or the current of the electron beam can be modulated again by utilizing the second-section slow-wave structure or the resonant cavity, and then the secondary electron multiplying piece and the third-section slow-wave structure or the resonant cavity are connected as output. The slow wave structure or the resonant cavity and the secondary electron multiplier are staggered. The secondary electron multiplication realizes electron beam current multiplication, namely energy multiplication, but does not influence density modulation generated by the electron beam, so that higher power and higher gain electromagnetic wave output can be obtained. Meanwhile, because of the secondary electron multiplying piece, the vacuum electronic device does not need to add a focusing magnetic field, because even if the electron beam is dispersed, the density change of the electron beam is not influenced, although only a small amount of electrons can hit the secondary electron multiplying piece after the dispersion, the gain of the secondary electron multiplying piece is as high as tens of thousands of times, and the current of the electron beam can be amplified enough.
In addition, because the focusing magnetic field is not needed to be added, the power of the output electromagnetic wave is improved, and the gain is improved, the volume and the mass of the electromagnetic wave generator can be greatly reduced. Compared with the existing electromagnetic wave generator, the volume of the vacuum electronic device is reduced to half of the original volume, the gain is enlarged to 2 times of the original gain, the structure is simpler, and the urgent requirements of small satellites, phased array systems and the like on novel vacuum electronic devices which are small in volume, light in weight, high in gain and capable of being produced in batches can be met.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an embodiment of an electromagnetic wave generator (folded waveguide slow wave structure) utilizing secondary electron multiplication according to the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the structure of another embodiment of an electromagnetic wave generator (resonator) of the present invention utilizing secondary electron multiplication;
FIG. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of another embodiment of an electromagnetic wave generator (rectangular grid slow wave structure) utilizing secondary electron multiplication according to the present invention;
FIG. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of another embodiment of an electromagnetic wave generator (helical slow wave structure) using secondary electron multiplication according to the present invention.
Detailed Description
The following description of the embodiments of the present invention is provided in order to better understand the present invention for those skilled in the art with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is to be expressly noted that in the following description, a detailed description of known functions and designs will be omitted when it may obscure the subject matter of the present invention.
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an embodiment (a folded waveguide slow wave structure) of an electromagnetic wave generator using secondary electron multiplication according to the present invention.
In the present embodiment, as shown in fig. 1, the electromagnetic wave generator using secondary electron multiplication of the present invention includes: a cathode 1, two sections of slow wave structures 2 and a secondary electron multiplying piece 3. In the present embodiment, the slow-wave structure is a folded waveguide slow-wave structure, and the cathode 1 is a hot cathode.
The secondary electron multiplying piece 3 is provided with a plurality of micro-channels with micrometer diameters along the thickness direction (electron transmission direction), the inner walls of the micro-channels are coated with secondary electron multiplying films (micro-channel inner wall films), the height or the diameter of the micro-channels is far smaller than the thickness of the secondary electron multiplying piece, namely the length of the micro-channels, electrons can collide with the inner walls of the micro-channels for a plurality of times, and each collision can generate a plurality of secondary electrons (secondary electron emission coefficient, generally delta is larger than 3); the secondary electron multiplying chip 3 is vertically inserted into the two sections of the folded waveguide slow wave structures 2 which are connected in front and back.
The cathode 1 emits electrons, forming an electron beam. After being emitted from a cathode 1, electrons are firstly modulated by a first section of folded waveguide slow wave structure 2 to generate primary speed and density modulation, then enter a secondary electron multiplying piece 3, and are collided for many times in a microchannel to generate electron multiplication of tens of thousands of times, so that electron beam current 4 with density modulation and amplification of tens of thousands of times is formed, the secondary electron multiplying piece 3 is connected with a second section of folded waveguide slow wave structure 2, and the electron beam current 4 with specific density modulation and amplification of tens of thousands of times can be excited to generate electromagnetic wave output of tens of thousands of times.
In this embodiment, the radius of the secondary electron multiplying piece 3 is 1mm, the thickness is 1mm, the cathode 1 emits the initial electron beam, after the modulation of the first section of the folded waveguide slow wave structure 2, the secondary electron multiplying piece 3 passes through, and then the second section of the folded waveguide slow wave structure 2 generates 2-8GHz electromagnetic waves.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the structure of another embodiment of the electromagnetic wave generator (resonator) of the present invention utilizing secondary electron multiplication.
In this embodiment, as shown in fig. 2, the electromagnetic wave generator using secondary electron multiplication is similar to the structure shown in fig. 1, except that three resonant cavities 501, 502, 503 and two secondary electron multiplication pieces 301, 302 are used. The secondary electron multiplying piece 301, 302 is vertically inserted between the two resonant cavities 501, 502, 503 connected in front and back, that is, the secondary electron multiplying piece 301 is vertically inserted between the two resonant cavities 501, 502 connected in front and back, and the secondary electron multiplying piece 302 is vertically inserted between the two resonant cavities 502, 503 connected in front and back.
The secondary electron multiplying pieces 301 and 302 are elliptical pieces, the long axis is 5.5mm, the short axis is 1.2mm, the thickness is 2mm, the cathode 1 generates an initial electron beam group, the initial electron beam group is modulated by the first section of resonant cavity 501, multiplied by the first secondary electron multiplying piece 301, modulated by the second section of resonant cavity 502, multiplied by the second secondary electron multiplying piece 302 again, and finally generates electromagnetic wave output of 32-40GHz in the third section of resonant cavity 503.
FIG. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of another embodiment of an electromagnetic wave generator (rectangular grid slow wave structure) using secondary electron multiplication according to the present invention.
In this embodiment, as shown in fig. 3, the electromagnetic wave generator using secondary electron multiplication is similar to the structure shown in fig. 2, except that three rectangular grid slow wave structures 601, 602, 603 are adopted, two secondary electron multiplication sheets 301, 302 are rectangular sheets, the length and width are 5 × 2mm, and the thickness is 0.5mm, the cathode 1 generates an initial electron beam group, which is modulated by the first rectangular grid slow wave structure 601, multiplied by the first secondary electron multiplication sheet 301, modulated by the second rectangular grid slow wave structure 602, multiplied by the second secondary electron multiplication sheet 302, and finally generates an electromagnetic wave output of 10-20GHz in the third rectangular grid slow wave structure 603.
FIG. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of another embodiment of an electromagnetic wave generator (helical slow wave structure) using secondary electron multiplication according to the present invention.
In this embodiment, as shown in fig. 4, the electromagnetic wave generator using secondary electron multiplication is similar to the structure shown in fig. 2, except that four helical slow wave structures 701, 702, 703, 704 are adopted, three secondary electron multiplication pieces 301, 302, 303 are circular pieces, the radius is 1mm, the thickness is 0.6mm, the cathode 1 generates an initial electron beam group, the initial electron beam group is modulated by the first helical slow wave structure 701, multiplied by the first secondary electron multiplication piece 301, modulated by the second helical slow wave structure 702, multiplied by the second secondary electron multiplication piece 302 again, modulated by the third helical slow wave structure 703, multiplied by the third secondary electron multiplication piece 303 again, and finally generates an electromagnetic wave output of 65-75GHz in the fourth helical slow wave structure 704. That is, the present invention can be further extended on the basis of two or three stages.
In the practical application process, the secondary electron multiplying sheet and the slow-wave structure material may be made of metal materials such as oxygen-free copper, stainless steel, tungsten, molybdenum, etc., alloy materials, or semiconductor materials such as gallium nitride, gallium arsenide, diamond, etc., according to different designs. The slow wave structure or the resonant cavity can be a spiral line, a folded waveguide, a rectangular double gate, a rectangular single gate, a single resonant cavity, a multi-resonant cavity, a rectangular cavity, an elliptical cavity and the like according to different designs and applications, and the applicability of the invention is not influenced. The secondary electron multiplier may be cylindrical, rectangular, highly elliptical, annular, etc.
Although illustrative embodiments of the present invention have been described above to facilitate the understanding of the present invention by those skilled in the art, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the scope of the embodiments, and various changes may be made apparent to those skilled in the art as long as they are within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined and defined by the appended claims, and all matters of the invention which utilize the inventive concepts are protected.