Relativistic Cherenkov microwave oscillator without a guiding magnetic field

A relativistic Cherenkov microwave oscillator without a guiding magnetic field has been designed, constructed, and tested in which a continuous cylindrical electron beam propagates in a short (L approximate to 3 lambda, lambda being the radiation wavelength) resonant slow-wave structure. The electron beam is energy-modulated at the input of the interaction space, which provides conditions for the energy exchange at a wave phase velocity exceeding the particle velocity. The effective beam-wave coupling is provided by a nearly homogeneous profile of the longitudinal electric field component of the synchronous wave in the interaction space cross section. The efficiency of power conversion from high-current electron beam to electromagnetic radiation at E-01 mode is about 8% at a maximum output pulse radiation power of 1.2 +/- 0.3 GW and a working frequency of 4.05 GHz.