Analysis of rectangular waveguide grating slow-wave structure with the arbitrary shaped grooves

The rectangular waveguide grating slow-wave structure (SWS) with arbitrary shaped grooves is presented and analyzed in this paper. As an all-metal slow-wave circuit, it has properties that can be used in high-power millimeter-wave or sub-millimeter wave traveling wave tube (TWT). The unified dispersion equation and the expression of coupling impedance are obtained in this paper by means of an approximate field-theory analysis, in which the profile of the groove is approximately replaced by a series of steps and the field continuity at the interface of two neighboring steps together with the field matching conditions at the interface between the groove region and the interaction region are employed. A rectangular groove SWS was manufactured and the cold measurement was made. The experimental data are in good agreement with the numerical calculation. The derived transcendental equations are resolved numerically for four classical structures such as rectangular, dovetail, ladder and cosine. Finally, taking the rectangular waveguide grating SWS with rectangular grooves for example, the influences of physical dimensions on dispersion relation and coupling impedance are discussed.