The design, performance, and characteristics of a low-temperature microwave-driven atmospheric pressure plasma jet (MAPPJ) are presented. The MAPPJ is based on a complex coaxial transmission line structure, and the gas is discharged by a continuous-wave microwave. By inputting two channel gas through inner and outer coaxial transmission lines, respectively, the gas flow can be restricted and the plasma jet open to atmospheric air could be long and straight without quartz tube. A 28.6 mm long straight low-temperature plasma jet is observed in the experiment. This MAPPJ device shows high efficiency in a wide operation range, and a maximum efficiency of 89.6% is measured in the experiment without a microwave matching network. This approach can be an initiation toward the commercialization of low-temperature MAPPJs.

To explore the approach for generating high-power frequency-tunable subterahertz (sub-THz) to THz radiation, a 220-GHz high-order axial modes (HOAMs) gyrotron is developed, and the proof-of-principle experiment is presented in this paper. Experimental results demonstrate that driven by an electron beam of high voltage and high current, HOAMs are successfully excited in a long cylindrical cavity. By tuning the operating magnetic field, a mode transition between the first four axial modes was experimentally observed with a stepwise frequency tuning range of 0.79 GHz around 219 GHz, while a 0.58-GHz frequency tuning range via beam voltage tuning by operating in the first three axial modes. During the process of frequency tuning, the output power was kept not less than 0.45 kW, while the maximum output power was 3.80 kW with an output efficiency of 6%. These experimental results of mode transition and mode competition between axial modes in high-power millimeter-wave gyrotron could be beneficial for the development of frequency-tunable gyrotron toward some up-and-coming novel THz applications.

To reduce mode competition in a high-harmonic terahertz gyrotron, the gyrotron with a quasi-optical confocal cavity is proposed. Theoretical and experimental investigations demonstrate that the confocal cavity has good-mode selection and is suitable for high-harmonic operation. However, due to the transverse nonuniformity of the radio frequency field, the beam–wave interaction efficiency is low in the confocal cavity. To mitigate this drawback, the double confocal cavity is investigated in this study. Through three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation on a designed 330-GHz gyrotron with a double confocal cavity, the physical mechanism of beam–wave interactions in a double confocal cavity is analyzed and presented.