Undergraduate Research at Jefferson Lab

Modeling a Magnetron as an RLC Circuit for External Controls

Student: Jonah Britton

School: University of Montana

Mentored By: Haipeng Wang

Magnetrons have been suggested as an alternative to the klystrons used in Jefferson Lab's accelerator facility due to their lower cost and higher efficiency. This study modeled a 10 vane magnetron with a resonant frequency of 2.45 GHz as an equivalent RLC circuit so that the magnetron could be analyzed via a simulation. Values for the inductors, capacitors, and resistors were calculated with equations from a previous study by Fan et al. An S-parameter simulation confirmed the resonant frequency of the pi mode of this coupled 10 vane device to be 2.45 GHz. This working model allows us to simulate the magnetron under external phase locking and amplitude control and provides a means to study the magnetron system stability to overcome the "beat-wave" during the startup of the magnetron when external loads like an accelerator cavity have a different frequency from the magnetron source.

[Watch the presentation on YouTube]