Intense microwave pulse production from vircators with inductive energy storage

The high-voltage source has been developed for investigations of the vircator operation. It contains an inductive storage, electrically exploded opening switch, and separating spark gap. The inductive storage is made in the form of two inductively coupled coils; the primary coil provides fast current input from the pulsed current generator and the secondary coil, with the electrically exploded opening switch, forms the voltage pulse of parameters required for the microwave source operation. The microwave source is the vircator of triode configuration. The results of the experiments performed are presented. At the primary voltage applied to the pulsed current generator of 40 kV and the stored energy of 12 kJ, the vircator voltage pulse is formed of 600 kV amplitude and 360 ns duration. The vircator current reaches the value of 13 - 14 kA. The stable microwave generation has been obtained in the S-band. The microwave power exceeds 300 MW and the microwave pulse duration is of 180 - 200 ns.