A pulse prototype of a W-band TE₀₁ mode gyrotron traveling-wave tube (gyro-TWT) amplifier is designed, and it features high gain and broadband capabilities. The TE₀₁ mode input coupler is constructed by mounting a sapphire pill-box window onto a Y-type mode converter. The high power output window will employ a triple-sapphire-disc configuration to achieve return loss lower than -30 dB over a bandwidth of 8 GHz. To suppress the spurious oscillations and realize high-average power potential, a new lossy ceramic material with weak electric conductivity is loaded in the TE₀₁ mode cylindrical interaction waveguide. The loss-free output taper is carefully optimized to suppress oscillations and maintain broadband amplification. Employing a magnetic injection gun of beam voltage 70 kV, beam current 3 A, pitch factor 1.5, and axial-velocity spread 5%, theoretical investigation predicts that the gyro-TWT amplifier is of excellent performance, which includes being driven to saturation with input power P_in <; 0.4 W, highest efficiency of 32.4%, and the bandwidth of 4.2 GHz with output power exceeding 50 kW.

Spoof surface plasmon (SSP) meta-couplers that efficiently integrate other diversified functionalities into a single ultrathin device are highly desirable in the modern microwave and terahertz fields. However, the diversified functionalities, to the best of our knowledge, have not been applied to circular polarization meta-couplers because of the spin coupling between the orthogonal incident waves. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a terahertz spin-decoupled bifunctional meta-coupler for SSP excitation and beam steering. The designed meta-coupler is composed of a coupling metasurface and a propagating metasurface. The former aims at realizing anomalous reflection or converting the incident waves into SSP under the illumination of the right or left circular polarization waves, respectively, and the latter are used to guide out the excited SSP. The respective converting efficiency can reach 82% and 70% at 0.3THz for the right and left circular polarization incident waves. Besides, by appropriately adjusting the reflection phase distribution, many other functionalities can also be integrated into the meta-coupler. Our study may open up new routes for polarization-related SSP couplers, detectors, and other practical terahertz devices.

A 1 bit single-polarization broadband space-time-coding digital metasurface element with a zero cross polarization is proposed. This element consists of a modified patch, an electronic switch, a dc-bias network, a ground plane, and two-layer dielectrics. The upper patch with edge loading and centered square hole is fully optimized to achieve broadband and stable phase difference between two states. By electronically controlling the diode, the element achieves a 1 bit phase shift with a relative bandwidth of 20% within 180° ± 30° from 7.71 to 9.43 GHz. Moreover, a negligible cross polarization is obtained due to the uniaxial symmetry of the structure, and the amplitude loss is less than 0.8 dB for two states. The experimental results measured in a rectangular waveguide are well matched with the simulations, further demonstrating validity of the proposed element.

A dielectric-loaded (DL) waveguide is an attractive possibility for interaction circuits with high-power sources in the millimeter-wave regime down to tenths of millimeters, particularly for gyrotron-traveling-wave-tube amplifiers (gyro-TWTs). We present results on a systematic investigation of the influence of the periodically loaded lossy dielectric on the propagation characteristics of the operating modes, which reveals that a complex mode in the periodic system can be mapped to a corresponding mode in an empty waveguide or a uniform DL waveguide. Dielectric losses not only induce modal transitions between different modes with similar field structures and close phase velocities in the uniform system but also unify the discrete mode spectrum into a continuous spectrum in the periodic system. Since the lossy dielectric functions as a power sink, the higher order Bloch harmonic components arising from the structural periodicity are suppressed, and the mode spectrum of the lossy periodic system degenerates into that of an empty waveguide. This alleviates the potential danger of spurious oscillations induced by the higher order harmonic components, making the periodic lossy DL waveguide promising in a high-power millimeter-wave gyro-TWT.

The coupling between surface plasmons and free electrons may be used to amplify waves or accelerate particles. Nonetheless, such an interaction is usually weak due to the small interaction length or velocity mismatching. Here a mechanism for enhancing the coupling between plasmonic fields and relativistic electrons is proposed. By using a weakly gradient meta-surface that supports the spoof surface-plasmons (SSP), the phase velocity of SSP mode can be manipulated and quasi-velocity-matching between SSP and electrons may be achieved. The dynamic coupling equations suggest that, due to the strong coupling, the energy can be extracted continuously from the relativistic electrons. The sustained increase of SSP in a narrow frequency band has been demonstrated by the particle-in-cell simulations, where the output power of SSP attains 65 W at 1 THz (with 28 mm interaction length) and the coupling efficiency is enhanced by two orders of magnitude. The results may find potential applications for designing new compact and efficient THz wave sources.

The stability of the millimeter-wave gyrotron-traveling-wave-tube (gyro-TWT) amplifier can be effectively improved via controlling the propagation characteristics of the operating modes using lossy dielectric-lined (DL) waveguide. Self-consistent nonlinear theory of the electron cyclotron maser (ECM) interaction in lossy DL circuit is developed based on a full-wave study of the propagation characteristics of the DL waveguide. This nonlinear theory fully takes into consideration the waveguide structure and the lossy dielectric characteristics. It is capable of accurately calculating the ECM instability between a cyclotron harmonic and a circular polarized mode, and effectively predicting the nonlinear stability of the DL waveguide-based gyro-TWT. Systematic investigation of a Ka-band ${\text{TE}}_{01}$ mode DL waveguide-based gyro-TWT is carried out, and numerical calculation reveals a series of interesting results. This work provides a basic theoretical tool for further exploring the application of the lossy DL waveguide in millimeter-wave gyro-TWTs.