Conceptual designs of E x B multistage depressed collectors for gyrotrons

Multistage depressed collectors are challenges for high-power, high-frequency fusion gyrotrons. Two concepts exist in the literature: (1) unwinding the spent electron beam cyclotron motion utilizing non-adiabatic transitions of magnetic fields and (2) sorting and collecting the electrons using the E x B drift. To facilitate the collection by the drift, the hollow electron beam can be transformed to one or more thin beams before applying the sorting. There are many approaches, which can transform the hollow electron beam to thin beams; among them, two approaches similar to the tilted electric field collectors of traveling wave tubes are conceptually studied in this paper: the first one transforms the hollow circular electron beam to an elongated elliptic beam, and then the thin elliptic beam is collected by the E x B drift; the second one splits an elliptic or a circular electron beam into two arc-shaped sheet beams; these two parts are collected individually. The functionality of these concepts is proven by CST simulations. A model of a three-stage collector for a 170 GHz, 1MW gyrotron using the latter approach shows 76% collector efficiency while taking secondary electrons and realistic electron beam characteristics into account.