Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-205).The gyrotron is a source capable of producing megawatt power levels at millimeter-wave frequencies for many important applications, including electron cyclotron heating and current drive in magnetic fusion devices. It is important that the gyrotron operates with high efficiency and provides a high quality output beam to minimize system size, maximize reliability and avoid additional losses in external systems. This thesis presents the experimental study of such a gyrotron designed to operate at MW power levels and whose initial 110 GHz operation was expanded to include operation at 124.5 GHz. To this end, a new set of components, including a cavity, mode converter, and output window were designed for operation at both frequencies. The cavity was designed using the code MAGY and the Q factors of 830 for the TE22,6,1mode at 110 GHz and 1060 for the TE24,7,1 mode at 124.5 GHz would be suitable for CW operation in an industrial gyrotron. The mode converter consisting of a dimpled-wall launcher and 4 phasecorrecting mirrors could theoretically produce an output beam with 99 % Gaussian beam content at each frequency while a single-disc window was implemented with over 99.5 % power transmission at both frequencies. The achieved output power in experiment was 1.1 MW at 110 GHz and 850 kW at 124.5 GHz for the design parameters of 96 kV and 40 A. At 98 kV and 42 A, the gyrotron achieved 1.25 MW and 1 MW at 110 and 124.5 GHz, respectively. Mode competition is typically a major limitation in such gyrotrons, and stable single-mode operation was demonstrated at both frequencies. At 110 GHz, the output beam had 98.8 % Gaussian beam content, while at 124.5 GHz, the output beam quality was 94.4 %. Another experiment within this thesis demonstrated the implementation of a mode converter with smooth mirrors that would be less susceptible to machining and misalignment errors. A Gaussian beam content of 96 % was measured in that experiment. In addition, a thorough study of the gyrotron start-up scenario was performed, for which experimental work had been lacking in the literature. The start-up scenario is the sequence of modes that are excited during the rise of the voltage pulse and is essential for the gyrotron to operate in its most efficient regime known as the hard self-excitation regime. This gyrotron operates nominally in the TE22,6,1 mode near the 110 GHz cutoff frequency with an axial field profile that is approximately Gaussian at the steady-state peak voltage. In experiments performed in the smooth mirror mode converter configuration, lower frequency modes were observed at lower voltages as opposed to higher frequency modes as predicted by theory. Analysis of these modes showed that they are backward-wave modes far from their cutoff frequency which have higher order axial field profiles, i.e. TE21,6,3 and TE21,6,4 modes at frequencies of 108-109 GHz. The excitation of these modes was investigated and shown to be possible by using theory and single-mode simulations with the code MAGY. This discovery was important as these modes were not included in past code runs, and thus future improvements can be made to incorporate this effect.by David S. Tax.Ph.D
