Analysis and design of the taper in metal-grating periodic slow-wave structures for rectangular Cerenkov masers

The hybrid-mode dispersion equation of the metal-grating periodic slow-wave structure for a rectangular Cerenkov maser is derived by using the Borgnis function and field-matching methods.An equivalent-circuit model for the taper of the groove depth that matches the smooth waveguide to the metal-grating structure is proposed.By using the equivalentcircuit method,as well as the Ansoft high frequency structure simulator(HFSS) code,an appropriate electromagnetic mode for beam-wave interaction is selected and the equivalent-circuit analysis on the taper is given.The calculated results show that a cumulative reflection coefficient of 0.025 for the beam-wave interaction structure at a working frequency of 78.1 GHz can be reached by designing the exponential taper with a TE z10 rectangular waveguide mode as the input and the desired TE x10 mode as the output.It is worth pointing out that by using the equivalent-circuit method,the complex field-matching problems from the traditional field-theory method for taper design can be avoided,so the taper analysis process is markedly simplified.