Optimization Design of Helix Pitch for Efficiency Enhancement in the Helix Travelling Wave Tubes

The output section of a helix travelling wave tube usually contains a helix pitch taper for high rf electron efficiency. By keeping the rf field as synchronous as possible with the decelerating electron beam bunches, the rf field can extract much more energy from the beam, and thus the maximum electron efficiency can be realized. Recently, a global simulated annealing algorithm has been employed to design the helix pitch profile so as to improve the electron efficiency as much as possible. From the numerical results, it is concluded that the electron efficiency can be enhanced by about 4%-8%.