Recently, the High Power Microwave Research group from College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies has achieved coherent combining of phase-steerable high power microwaves. The research is published in Physical Review Letters, entitled "Coherent Combining of Phase-Steerable High Power Microwaves Generated by Two X-Band Triaxial Klystron Amplifiers with Pulsed Magnetic Fields". This is China's first paper about coherent combining of phase-steerable high power microwaves published in Physical Review Letters, marking that China's research in related field has reached globally advanced level.
The research reports the first experimental demonstration of coherent combining of phase-steerable high power microwaves (HPMs) generated by X-band relativistic triaxial klystron amplifier modules under the guidance of pulsed magnetic fields. Electronically agile manipulation of the HPM phase is achieved with a mean discrepancy of 4° at the gain level of 110 dB, and the coherent combining efficiency has reached as high as 98.4%, leading to combined radiations with equivalent peak power of 4.3 GW and average pulse duration of 112 ns. The underlying phase-steering mechanism during the nonlinear beam-wave interaction process is furthermore explored by particle-in-cell simulation and theoretical analysis. This letter paves the way for high power phase array in large scale and may stimulate new interest in research of phase-steerable high power masers.
Associate Research Fellow Ju Jinchuan, Ge Xingjun and doctoral candidate Zhang Wei are first authors of the paper. Associate Research Fellow Ju Jinchuan, Zhang Qiang and Research Fellow He Juntao are corresponding authors.