RESEARCH ARTICLE | MAY 17 2021

W-band circular TM11 mode converter for gyrotrons 

Hsien-Wen Chao; Ren-Jun Huang; Yi-Chin Li; Tsun-Hsu Chang 

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 053540 (2021)

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0046216

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W-band circular TM11 mode converter

for gyrotrons
Cite as: Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 053540 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0046216
Submitted: 1 February 2021 • Accepted: 3 May 2021 •
Published Online: 17 May 2021

Hsien-Wen Chao, Ren-Jun Huang, Yi-Chin Li, and Tsun-Hsu Changa)

AFFILIATIONS
Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan

a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: thschang@phys.nthu.edu.tw

ABSTRACT
This work proposes a methodology to convert a rectangular TE10 mode to a circular TM11 mode using an H-plane power divider at
W-band. The divider evenly splits the input signal into two parts with the same amplitude and phase. One of the waves then goes through
a wider rectangular waveguide with a lower cutoff frequency. After propagating through a specific length, the two waves differ by 180○ .
The two out-of-phase waves can jointly synthesize the circular TM11 mode with high mode purity. This power divider is structurally simple
and capable of high-power operation. The full-wave simulation shows that the metal’s conductivity affects the transmission of two-mode

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converters joined back-to-back. The measured back-to-back transmission agrees with the simulation result except for minor quantitative
differences. The measured 3-dB bandwidth is 2.8 GHz with a center frequency of 93.6 GHz, which warrants the success of the TM11 mode
gyrotrons.
Published under license by AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0046216

I. INTRODUCTION TM modes are generally excited for the accelerating cavity,20,21

Gyrotrons generate high-power radiation sources in millime- microwave plasma reactors,22–24 low-power microwave measure-
ter, sub-terahertz, or even up to terahertz regions.1–3 TE (transverse ment and diagnostics,25,26 and high-power applications.27–30 Excita-
electric) waveguide modes are traditionally considered to be oper- tion of the circular TM11 mode for the application of high-power
ating modes. However, recent studies have found that TM (trans- gyrotrons has never been reported before. In contrast to the TE
verse magnetic) modes can also be employed for gyrotrons.4–8 Those modes, the authors propose an H-plane tee structure to generate the
works suggest that TM modes are not suitable for the gyrotron desired TM11 mode with high mode purity and broad bandwidth.
traveling-wave amplifier as expected, but are, surprisingly, good for We design, simulate, and fabricate the circular TM11 mode at
the backward-wave interaction. For a backward-wave oscillator, the W-band, which converts the operating TM11 mode to the rectangu-
wave will propagate backward. Thus, a mode converter is required lar TE10 mode for diagnosis and further applications. Back-to-back
to convert the operating mode (e.g., circular TM11 mode) to another measurement is the common technique to characterize the converter
waveguide mode (e.g., rectangular TE10 mode) for further diagnostic performance. It consists of two identical converters joined back-to-
purposes and applications.9 back at the circular waveguide. A peak insertion loss of −0.73 dB
The Y-type power divider is based on the idea of the E-plane with a 3-dB bandwidth of 2.8 GHz centered at 93.6 GHz was
tee. The Y-type divider and its cascaded structure are ideal for excit- reported. The novel mode converter enables the TM mode gyrotron
ing various TE modes, such as circular TE11 , TE21 , TE01 , and TE41 as well as other applications.
modes, as well as coaxial TE01 modes.10–19 Mode converters can be
used for the applications of gyrotrons, rotary joints, plasma reaction II. THEORY AND SIMULATION
chambers, and material processing cavities. Sidewall couplings mean
that the input rectangular waveguides are joined from the inner wall A. Synthesizing with magnetic dipoles
of the cylindrical waveguide. Its power-handling capability is good, The methodology of synthesizing a waveguide mode has been
and the converting length is short. discussed in textbooks.31,32 A practical application of the method can

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 053540 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0046216 92, 053540-1
Published under license by AIP Publishing
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be found in Ref. 13. Instead of elaborating the technical details, the B. H-plane power divider
authors focus on the central idea of exciting the desired TM11 mode. Figure 2 shows the idea of the proposed power divider. A rect-
Figure 1(a) shows the field strength patterns of the desired angular waveguide mode of the TE10 mode is split into two equal
TM11 mode in a cylindrical waveguide. The electric field intensity and balanced signals using the H-plane power divider, as shown in
is shown on the top surface, while the magnetic field intensity is Fig. 2(a). The two derived signals (output ports) are then coupled
depicted on the bottom surface. The intensity and direction of the to the cylindrical waveguide on the circumference. The waveguide
fields are displayed as the vector fields, as in Fig. 1(b). It is clear height is the same as the standard WR-10 waveguide (0.05 in.), but
that the electric field on the top surface is out-of-phase. The electric the width changes slightly to produce 180○ phase difference. The
field points up at one side and down at the other side. The magnetic electric field vector is drawn in Fig. 2(b).
field vectors are denoted by arrows and point in the transverse plane For the convenience of theoretical analysis and precise machin-
resulting in an apparent asymmetric pattern of the bottom surface ing, we have a nearly straight section. The waveguide’s width and
of Fig. 1(b). Figure 1 suggests that to synthesize the TM11 mode, we length are denoted as w and l, respectively, as shown in Fig. 2(a). The
need to generate two out-of-phase dipoles. propagating constant β is the functions of the angular frequency ω
The apertures on the sidewall of a cylindrical waveguide could of the wave and the waveguide width w. It reads
excite the dipoles. The rectangular waveguide and the cylindrical
waveguide are joined perpendicularly. The normal component of the √
π 2
electric field En is zero, and the tangential component of the H field β(ω, w) = ω2 μ0 ε0 − ( ) , (3)
H t is non-zero.13,31,32 Other components, such as the tangential elec- w
tric field and the normal H field, are less critical in exciting the dipole where μ0 and ε0 are the permeability and the permittivity of vac-
moments because of the boundary conditions of the fields. uum. The phase difference (Δϕ) can be estimated using a simplified
The electric dipole moment Pe and the magnetic dipole equation for a given set of w and Δw,
moment Pm for a sidewall coupling read
Δϕ(ω) ≅ [β(ω, w + Δw) − β(ω, w)]l. (4)
Pe = 0, (1a)
Figure 3 shows the simulated phase difference (solid line)
and the calculated phase difference (dashed line) of the proposed
Pm = −αm H t δ(x − x0 ), H-plane power divider. The simulation is performed using HFSS

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(1b)
(High-Frequency Structure Simulator, ANSYS), while the calcula-
where x and x0 are positions of the observer and the aperture; αm is tion is obtained with Eq. (4). The calculated phase difference based
a constant that depends on the aperture’s size and shape.13,31,32 on Eq. (4) is slightly higher than the simulated value using HFSS. The
The field strength of the TM11 mode is two-fold symmetric as in just derived Eq. (4) can serve as a preliminary design guide. Besides,
Fig. 1(a). Dual feeds are preferred, but the phase must differ by 180○ the power divider also splits the wave evenly. Their transmissions
as in Fig. 1(b). Therefore, the magnetic dipoles can be expressed in (S21 and S31 ) are very close to 3 dB.
cylindrical coordinates as
C. Excitation and mode purity analysis
Pm = −αm Hϕ δ(ρ − ρ0 )δ(z − z0 ) ⋅ [δ(ϕ − 0) − δ(ϕ − π)]ϕ̂, (2) The H-plane power divider is then coupled to the cylindrical
waveguide, as shown in Fig. 4(a). A pillbox-like buffer structure at
where ρ0 is the radius of the cylindrical waveguide and z0 is the axial the junction is employed to provide a better match. The dimensions
position of the coupling holes. The tangential component of the H of the pillbox can be determined by optimization. The electric field
field is denoted as H ϕ in the direction of ϕ. Notably, the two magnetic pattern is displayed on the entire surface and ports of the device. A
dipole moments are out-of-phase. pure TM11 mode is excited as compared with Fig. 1(a).

FIG. 2. (a) The top view of the H-plane power divider. The wave incident from
the input port (standard WR-10 waveguide) is divided into two waves of equal
amplitude but out of phase. l and w are the length and the width of the waveguide.
Δw is the difference in the width of the waveguide. (b) The vector fields of the
FIG. 1. (a) The intensities of the electric field (top) and the magnetic field (bottom). electric field along the waveguide. The directions of the electric fields at the two
(b) The vector fields of the electric field (top) and the magnetic field (bottom). output ports are opposite.

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 053540 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0046216 92, 053540-2
Published under license by AIP Publishing
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Scientific Instruments

Several unwanted modes need to be considered, such as TE11 ,

TE21 , TE31 , TE01 , and TM01 modes. The cutoff frequency of the TE01
mode is precisely the same as the TM11 mode, but the out-of-phase
magnetic dipoles exclude the possibility of exciting the TE01 mode.
Likewise, the azimuthally symmetric TM01 mode will be very diffi-
cult to excite. The cutoff frequencies of the TE11 and TE21 modes are
much lower than that of the TM11 mode. It will not be easy to excite
these two modes. From the above analysis, the primary parasitic
(unwanted) mode will be the TE31 mode.
Figure 4(b) shows the mode purity analysis from HFSS simu-
lation. The high transmission (solid blue curve) indicates that the
conversion efficiency from the rectangular TE10 mode to the circu-
lar TM11 mode is good. The low reflection (solid black curve) means
FIG. 3. The phase difference obtained using full-wave simulation (solid line) and that the reflection at the input port is small. The reflection is less than
calculated based on Eq. (4) (dashed line). The performance of the divider (S21 −15 dB over an extensive range. The TE11 , TE21 , TE01 , and TM01
and S31) is correlated with the right vertical axis. Roughly speaking, the two waves mode purities are very small, as expected. The primary threat, the
have equal transmission.
TE31 mode, will be excited, but, luckily, the conversion ratio is min-
imal and less than 0.1% (−30 dB). In all, the predominant mode is
the desired TM11 mode.
The diameter of the cylindrical waveguide of the mode con-
verter is generally larger than the diameter of the interaction section
of the gyrotron.16 The diameter of 4.26 mm is employed for the III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND MEASUREMENT
TM11 -mode converter with a cutoff frequency of 85.83 GHz. Note A. Back-to-back setup
that the diameter of the interaction section of the TM11 -mode Figure 5(a) shows the simulated electric field intensity inside
gyrotron will be generally smaller, for example, 2.00 mm.6 the two-mode converters joined back-to-back. A back-to-back setup
is commonly employed to characterize the performance of two

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identical mode converters. The transmission from one rectangu-
lar waveguide port to the other port is plotted in Fig. 5(b). The
perfect electric conductor (PEC) is the ideal metal without con-
ducting loss. The HFSS simulation with PEC gives us the opti-
mal condition. Two nearly 0-dB transmissions occur at 92.4 and
94.7 GHz. The bandwidth and the center frequency can be adjusted
by changing the radius of the cylindrical waveguide. This suggests
that a single peak centered at 93.6 GHz is possible, at least, in HFSS
simulation.
The conductivity and the surface roughness are very criti-
cal for terahertz devices.33–35 Therefore, another two conductivities
are considered in addition to the PEC case. The conductivity of
oxygen-free high conductivity (OFHC) copper is 5.8 × 107 S/m,
and that of brass is 1.6 × 107 S/m. The simulation clearly shows
that conductivity is very critical. Besides, there is a dip occurring at
92.77 GHz. The dip comes mainly from the mechanism of the struc-
tural resonance for the circular TM11 mode. The structural reso-
nance is due to the back-to-back configuration and has been dis-
cussed for the TE modes.13,34 In short, the insertion loss comes from
the conductor loss as well as the imperfection of the H-plane power
divider.
Figure 6(a) shows the schematic diagram of the experimental
setup. Each converter consists of two pieces, parts A and B. Two
converters join back-to-back with the configuration of ABBA. The
FIG. 4. (a) The electric field strength on the surface of the waveguide. A wave is four pieces are aligned with pins and fasten with screws. The photos
injected from the rectangular waveguide of the TE10 mode. It will convert to the of individual parts and assembly setup are also displayed in Fig. 6(b).
desired TM11 mode and many unwanted modes. For the gyrotron experiment, the The back-to-back setup is ready for the two-port network analyzer.
gyrating electron beam will pass through the beam tunnel, but the waves cannot.
(b) The mode purity analysis of the proposed converter. The input port is the rect-
angular waveguide of the TE10 mode. It will convert to the TM11 mode as well as B. Experimental results
other unwanted modes of the circular waveguide, such as TE11 , TE21 , TE31 , TE01 ,
Figure 7 shows the HFSS simulation and the measured results
and TM01 modes.
for a back-to-back configuration shown in Fig. 6. The conductor of

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 053540 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0046216 92, 053540-3
Published under license by AIP Publishing
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FIG. 7. The measured (black) and simulated (red) transmission for the back-to-
back setup. The 3-dB transmission shows a range of 2.8 GHz.

IV. CONCLUSIONS
This work presents a method to excite the circular TM11 mode.
The compact and all-metal converter enables high-power appli-
cations. The H-plane power divider and the phase controllability
can be applied to excite other TM modes. For example, the cir-
cular TM01 mode can be generated with two waves of the same
phase. The measured transmission is in qualitative agreement with

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FIG. 5. (a) The field strength inside the two converters joined back-to-back. (b) the full-wave simulation. The slight difference in the optimal trans-
The transmission using the full-wave simulation for a two-port setup. Three con- mission between simulation and measurement might be due to the
ductivities, such as PEC (perfect electric conductor), copper, and brass, are shown
converters’ surface roughness and machining errors.
here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
copper is used in the simulation. The simulation and experiment This project was financed by the Ministry of Science and Tech-
agree well qualitatively and quantitatively. The optimal transmission nology (MoST), Taiwan, under Grant No. 107-2112-M-007-015-
is −0.72 dB, which is not as good as the simulation but is acceptable. MY3. We would like to thank the Taiwan Semiconductor Research
The 3-dB bandwidth is 2.8 GHz, centered at 93.6 GHz. Institute (TSRI), Professor Guo-Wei Huang, Yu-Ming Teng, and
Jia-Bin Cian for their invaluable technical support.

DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 053540 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0046216 92, 053540-5
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