Microwave tubes

The intent of this report is to describe in some technical detail the various kinds of microwave tubes, either now in use or projected, discuss their modes of operation, present characteristics, limitations and applications, and also to discuss in terms of their technical characteristics what may be anticipated for possible performance and/or applications of these various tube types. Since this report is intended for a range of readers of varying degrees of knowledge in the field, it will be organized in a fashion so that it will be possible to read and get information at various levels of detail and sophistication. Various separate sections which can be read independent of the main text provide further details of characteristics of the various tube types for those who might be interested. It is not intended, however, that any portion of this report would be suitable in itself for tube designers, and there will be categorical statements about results, methods, without necessarily giving derivations or all the logical connections between some of the statements. In many cases, plausibility will be used rather than detailed, logical arguments to prove the validity of particular technical evaluations. We list first the various types of tubes which will be considered, with broad descriptions of their particular characteristics and possible applications. This will be followed by sections on each tube type, describing the tube in more detail. The tubes that will be described are the klystrons, the travelling wave tube, crossed field devices, (magnetion, crossed field amplifier, etc.), the gyrotron (also known as the cyclotron maser), the ubitron (also known as the free electron laser), and the gyrocon.