Waveguide Discontinuities

• Any interruption in the uniformity of a transmission line leads to

impedance mismatch and is known as impedance discontinuity or
waveguide discontinuities.
• In a waveguide system, when there is a mismatch, reflections will
occur.
• In transmission lines, in order to overcome this mismatch, lumped
impedances or stubs of required values are placed at the pre-
calculated points.
• Some waveguide discontinuities are used for matching purposes.
 Waveguide Irises
• Fixed or adjustable projections from the walls of waveguides are used for
impedance matching purposes, and these are known as windows or irises.
• An iris is a metal plate that contains an opening through which the waves
may pass.
• It is located in the transverse plane of either a magnetic or an electric field.
• Irises are classified according to the sign of the imaginary part of the
impedance.
• If the reactance of the impedance is positive or if the susceptance of the
admittance is negative, we have an inductive iris.
• If the reactance is negative or if the susceptance is positive, we have a
capacitive iris.
 Inductive Irises
• Usually inductive irises are used as coupling
networks between half-wavelength cavities in
rectangular waveguides.
• Generally an inductive iris is placed where either
magnetic field is strong or electric field is weak.
• The plane of polarization of the electric field
becomes parallel to the plane of inductive iris.
• This causes a current flow which sets up a
magnetic field.
• Then the energy is stored in the magnetic field.
• Hence, inductance will increase at that point of
the waveguide.
 Capacitive Irises
• A capacitive iris is also known as capacitive
window as shown in figure below.
• It extends from the top and bottom walls into the
waveguide.
• The capacitive iris has to be placed in strong
electric field.
• This capacitive iris creates the effect of capacitive
susceptance which is in parallel to that point of
waveguide where the electric field is strong.
 Combined Irises
• If the inductive and capacitive irises are combined
suitably (correctly shaped and positioned), the
inductive and capacitive reactances introduced
will be equal, and the iris will become a parallel
resonant circuit.
• For the dominant mode, the iris presents a high
impedance, and the shunting effect of this mode
will be negligible.
 Tuning Screws and Posts
• Posts and screws made from conductive material can be used for
impedance-changing devices in waveguides.
• A post or screw can also serve as a reactive element.
• The only significant difference between posts and screws is that posts are
fixed and screws are adjustable.
• A post (or screw) that only penetrates partially into the waveguide acts as a
shunt capacitive reactance.
• When a post extends completely through the waveguide, making contact
with the top and bottom walls, it acts as an inductive reactance.
• The screw acts similar to an LC-tuned circuit in such cases.
 Tuning Screws
• A screw is generally inserted into the
top or bottom walls of the waveguide,
parallel to the electric-field lines.
• It can give a variable amount of
susceptance depending on the depth of
penetration.
• A screw with an insertion distance
(screw depth) less than λ/4 produces
capacitive susceptance.
• When the distance is equal to λ/4, we
have series resonance.
• When the distance is greater than λ/4,
it produces inductive susceptance, as
shown in figure below.
 Tuning Screws
• The adjustable waveguide screw is
shown in Figure below. The
capacitive setting shown in first
figure and the inductive setting is
shown in second figure.
• The most direct method of
impedance matching with a
matched screw involves using a
single screw that is adjustable in
both length and position along the
waveguide.
• However, it requires a slot in the
waveguide.
 Posts
• A cylindrical post is introduced into the broader side of
the waveguide; it produces a similar effect as an iris in
providing lumped capacitive/inductive reactance at
that point.
• When a metalpost extends completely across the
waveguide, parallel to an electric field, it adds an
inductive susceptance that is parallel to the waveguide.
• A post extending across the waveguide at right angles
to the electric field produces an effective capacitive
susceptance that is in shunt with the waveguide at the
position of the post.
• The waveguide post is shown in figure below.
• The advantage of such posts over irises is the flexibility
they provide, which results in ease of matching.
 Matched Loads
• The most commonly used waveguide
terminations are the matched loads.
• Whenever the load impedance and
characteristic impedance of the transmission
line are not matched/equal, reflections exist.
• These reflections would cause frequency
instability to the source.
 Matched Loads
• Matched loads are used for minimizing the
reflections by placing a material in the
waveguide parallel to the electric field to
absorb the incident power completely.
• One of the methods involved in the
matched load is to place a resistive card in
the waveguide parallel to the electric field
as shown in above figure.
• The front portion of the card is tapered to
avoid discontinuity of the signal, and it
almost absorbs the incident field.
 Waveguide Termination
• Microwave circuit deals with very high frequency where electrical signals are
no more treated as simple low frequency signal but are treated as wave.
• Wave has the property of reflection and transmission.
• So in microwave any of the ports which is not in use cannot be kept open
circuited or short circuited since this will cause the wave to get reflected
from these ports.
• This reflected signal from the open or short circuited port interfere with
incident signal and standing wave is formed.
• Standing wave causes unwanted loss in the circuit and also reduces the
efficiency of the device.
• To avoid such situation proper termination of microwave system is required.
 Waveguide Termination : Taper Load
• It consists of a taper conical rod of lossy material
that is either fixed at one end as shown in figure
and is aligned with propagation axis.
• Total length of the lossy material is l1 +l2.
• When taper length l1 is greater than a few
wavelengths at the lowest operating frequency,
reflections are quite small (swr <1.04).
• The length L2 is chosen so that the combined loss
through l1 and l2 is greater than 20 dB.
• Therefore there will be 20 dB loss in forward
direction and 20 dB loss in reverse direction (after
reflection) so the total loss of 40 dB will reduce
the swr (standing wave ratio) to a great extent.
 Waveguide Termination : Step Load
• This is designed to overcome the disadvantage of larger length of taper load.
• This load contains a block of lossy dielectric material as shown in figure.
• Wave enters from open end of the load and hits the surface A of the lossy
material whose dimension is b1.
• Since the dimension b1 of the lossy material alters the characteristic
impedance of the waveguide some part of the wave is reflected back and
the remaining is propagated to hit the surface B
 Waveguide Attenuators
• An attenuator is a passive device that is used to reduce the strength or
amplitude of a signal.
• At microwave frequencies, the attenuators were not only meant to do this,
but also meant to maintain the characteristic impedance (Z0) of the system.
• If the Z0 of the transmission line is not maintained, the attenuator would be
seen as impedance discontinuity, which causes reflections.
• Usually, a microwave attenuator controls the flow of microwave power by
absorbing it.
• Attenuation in dB of a device is ten times the logarithmic ratio of power
flowing into the device (Pi) to the power flowing out of the device (Po) when
both the input and output circuits are matched.
 Waveguide Attenuators
• In a microwave transmission system, the microwave power transferring from
one section to another section can be controlled by a device known as
microwave attenuator.
• These attenuators operate on the principle of interfering with electric or
magnetic or both the fields.
• A resistive material placed in parallel to electric field lines (of field current)
will induce a current in the material,which will result in I2R loss.
• Thus, attenuation occurs by heating of the resistive element.
• Attenuators may be of three types:
1. Fixed
2. Mechanically or electronically variable
3. Series of fixed steps
 Waveguide Attenuators : Fixed
• Fixed attenuators are used where a fixed amount of attenuation is needed.
They also called pads.
• In this type of attenuator tapering is provided by placing a short section of a
waveguide with an attached tapered plug of absorbing material at the end.
• The purpose of tapering is for the gradual transition of microwave power
from the waveguide medium to the absorbing medium.
• Because of the absorbing medium, reflections at the media interface will be
minimized. In a fixed attenuator, plug is nothing but a dielectric slab which
has a glass slab with aquadog or a carbon film coating.
 Waveguide Attenuators : Fixed
• The pad is placed in such a way that the
plane is parallel to the electric field. For this,
two thin metal rods are used.
• The amount of attenuation provided by the
fixed attenuator depends on the strength of
the dielectric material, the location and area
of the pad, type of material used for pad
within waveguide and the frequency of
operation.
 Waveguide Attenuators : Variable
• For providing continuous or stepwise attenuation variable attenuators are used.
• The provided attenuation depends on the insertion depth of the absorbing plate
into the waveguide.
• The maximum attenuation will be achieved when the pad extends totally into the
waveguide.
• This type of variable attenuation is provided by knob and gear assembly which
can be properly calibrated.
• The power transmitted to the load can be varied manually or electronically from
nearly the full power of the source to as little as a millionth of a percent of the
source power depending on the frequency of operation.
• The types of variable attenuators are
1. Flap or resistive card-type attenuators
2. Slide vane attenuators
3. Rotary vane attenuators
Waveguide Attenuators : Variable
Waveguide Attenuators : Variable
Waveguide Attenuators : Variable
 Waveguide Phase Shifters
• A phase shifter is a two-port component that provides a fixed or variable
change in the phase of the traveling wave.
• An ideal phase shifter is lossless and matched. It only shifts the phase of
the output wave.
• Example: Phase shifters are used in phased antenna arrays.
• A structure resembling the attenuator in the figure, also operates as a
phase shifter when the resistive cards are replaced with dielectric cards
having proper lengths.
• Electrically controlled phase shifters are much faster than mechanical phase
shifters. They are often based on PIN diodes or field-effect transistors
(FETs).
Waveguide Phase Shifters
 Waveguide Phase Shifters
Fixed phase shifters
• They are usually extra transmission-line sections of a certain length that are
meant to shift the phase with regard to the reference line.
• Therefore, depending on the bias current, the wave traveling along the
transmission line will have an additional traveling path.
• Since these devices are binary switches, only discrete phase shifts are
possible.
Variable Phase Shifters
• The variable phase shifters use mechanical or electronic means to achieve a
dynamic range of phase difference.
• The mechanically tuned phase shifter usually consists of variable short
circuits that are used with hybrids or, in the case of waveguide
components, a dielectric slab with a variable position in the guide
 Waveguide Tee
• A waveguide Tee is formed when three waveguides are interconnected in the
form of English alphabet T and thus waveguide tee is 3-port junction.
• The waveguide tees are used to connects a branch or section of waveguide in
series or parallel with the main waveguide transmission line either for
splitting or combining power in a waveguide system
• There are basically 2 types of tees namely
1. H- Plane Tee junction
2. E-plane Tee junction
• A combination of these two tee junctions is called hybrid tee or “Magic Tee”
 E-Plane Tee
• An E-plane tee is a waveguide tee in which the axis of its side arm is parallel
to the E field of the main guide .
• If the collinear arms are symmetric about the side arm.
• If the E-plane tee is perfectly matched with the aid of screw tuners at the
junction, the diagonal components of the scattering matrix are zero because
there will be no reflection .
• When the waves are fed into side arm, the waves appearing at port 1 and
port 2 of the collinear arm will be in opposite phase and in same magnitude
E-Plane Tee
E-Plane Tee
E-Plane Tee
E-Plane Tee
E-Plane Tee
 H-Plane Tee
• An H-plane tee is a waveguide tee in which the axis of its side arm is shunting
the E field or parallel to the H-field of the main guide.
• If two input waves are fed into port 1 and port 2 of the collinear arm, the
output wave at port 3 will be in phase and additive.
• If the input is fed into port 3, the wave will split equally into port 1 and port 2
in phase and in same magnitude.
H-Plane Tee
H-Plane Tee
H-Plane Tee
 Magic Tee (Hybrid Tees )
• A magic tee is a combination of
E-plane and H-plane tee.
[Link] two waves of equal
magnitude and same phase are
fed into port 1 and port2 the
output will be zero at port 3 and
additive at port 4.
2. If a wave is fed into port 4 it will
be divided equally between port 1
and port 2 of the collinear arms
and will not appear at port 3.
 Magic Tee (Hybrid Tees )
3. If a wave is fed into port 3 , it
will produce an output of equal
magnitude and opposite phase at
port 1 and port 2. the output at
port 4 is zero.
4. If a wave is fed into one of the
collinear arms at port 1 and port
2, it will not appear in the other
collinear arm at port 2 or 1
because the E-arm causes a phase
delay while H arm causes a phase
advance.
Magic Tee (Hybrid Tees )
Magic Tee (Hybrid Tees )
Magic Tee (Hybrid Tees )
 Ferrites : Faraday Rotation Principles
• Ferrite Devices :Ferrite devices are Ferro or Ferric magnetic materials
consisting of many oxides.
• They cause high magnetic properties and are non-metallic properties with
very high resistivity.
• Applications of ferrites in microwave devices is to reduce the reflected
power.
• When two circularly Polarised waves(Left and right) are made to propagate
through ferrite.
• The material behaves differently to two rotating fields thereby presenting
different effective permeability and different velocities.
 Ferrites : Faraday Rotation Principles
• When a electromagnetic
wave passes through
ferrites, plane of
polarization continues to
rotate to an angle θ in a
particular direction and
changes in the same
direction whatever may
be the direction of
propagation of wave, this
is called as faraday
rotation.
 Gyrator
• Gyrator is a nonreciprocal ferrite device.
• It is a two port device that has a relative phase shift of 180° in the forward
direction and 0 (zero) phase shift in reverse direction
 Gyrator
• When a signal is given as an input through Port 1, the output at port 2 will
have a phase shift of 180° which is in the forward direction
• When a signal is given as an input through Port 2, the output at port 1 will
have aphase shift of 0° which is in the reverse direction.
• Hence it is also known as differential phase shift device.
 Isolator
• Isolator is a two port non-reciprocal lossy device having unidirectional
transmission characteristics.
• The important aspects of this passive device are.
• When the wave propagates from port 1 to port 2 there is no attenuation.
• When the wave propagates from port 1 to port 1 the attenuation is infinity.
Isolator
 Circulator
• A circulator is a four port microwave device which has a specific property
that each terminal is connected only to the text clockwise terminal.
• i.e. port 1 is connected to port 2 only and not to port 3 and 4 and port 2 is
connected to port 3 only etc.
 Circulator
• A four port Faraday rotation circulator is shown in figure.
• The power entering port 1 is TE10 mode and is converted to TE11 mode
because of gradual rectangular to circular transition.
• This power passes port 3 unaffected since the electric field is not significantly
cut and is rotated through 45 deg due to Ferrite passes port 4 unaffected and
finally emerges out of port 2.
• Power from port 2 will have plane of polarization already titled by 45 deg
with respect to port 1.
• This power whose plane of polarization is tilled through 90 deg finds port 3
suitably aligned and emerges out of it.
• Similarly port 3 is coupled only to port 4 and port 4 to port 1.
Limitations of Conventional Tubes
1. Limited frequency range: Conventional tubes are typically limited to
frequencies below about 3 GHz, while microwave frequencies range from
about 1 GHz to 300 GHz.
2. Large size: Conventional tubes are typically much larger than their
microwave counterparts, making them less suitable for use in compact
systems.
3. Low efficiency: Conventional tubes are less efficient than microwave
devices at converting DC power to RF power, resulting in higher power
consumption and heat generation.
4. Poor linearity: Conventional tubes tend to have poor linearity, meaning
that they may produce significant distortion when amplifying signals with a
wide dynamic range.
Limitations of Conventional Tubes
5. High cost: Conventional tubes are typically more expensive to manufacture
than microwave devices, making them less cost-effective in many
applications.
6. High voltage requirements: Conventional tubes require high DC operating
voltages, which can be difficult to generate and regulate, especially at
microwave frequencies.
7. Limited stability: Conventional tubes can be prone to drift and instability,
making them less suitable for use in high-precision applications.
 Two Cavity Klystron
• In the two-chamber klystron, the electron beam is injected into a resonant
cavity.
• The electron beam, accelerated by a positive potential, is constrained to
travel through a cylindrical drift tube in a straight path by an axial magnetic
field.
• While passing through the first cavity, the electron beam is velocity
modulated by the weak RF signal.
• In the moving frame of the electron beam, the velocity modulation is
equivalent to a plasma oscillation.
• Plasma oscillations are rapid oscillations of the electron density in conducting
media such as plasmas or metals.(The frequency only depends weakly on the
wavelength).
• So in a quarter of one period of the plasma frequency, the velocity
modulation is converted to density modulation, i.e. bunches of electrons.
Two Cavity Klystron
 Two Cavity Klystron
• As the bunched electrons enter the second chamber they induce standing waves at
the same frequency as the input signal.
• The signal induced in the second chamber is much stronger than that in the first.
• When the tube is energized, the cathode emits electrons which are focused into a
beam by a low positive voltage on the control grid.
• The beam is then accelerated by a very high positive dc potential that is applied in
equal amplitude to both the accelerator grid and the buncher grids.
• The buncher grids are connected to a cavity resonator that superimposes an ac
potential on the dc voltage.
• AC potentials are produced by oscillations within the cavity that begin
spontaneously when the tube is energized.
• The initial oscillations are caused by random fields and circuit imbalances that are
present when the circuit is energized.
Velocity Modulation : Two Cavity Klystron
• Due to potential difference V0 between anode and cathode, the electrons
from a high current density beam with velocity ϑ0

• Where e = charge of electron & M = Mass of electron

• The time taken by beam to cross cavity gap ‘d’ is the transit time and transit
angle through gap ‘d’ is,
Velocity Modulation : Two Cavity Klystron
• The input given to buncher cavity is the RF input.
• Average RF input in the gap of buncher cavity is,
 Velocity Modulation : Two Cavity Klystron

• When the electron passes through the buncher cavity their velocity either
increases or decreases depending on positive or negative cycle of KF ZIP.
• Let Vavg = velocity of electron at mid of gap
Velocity Modulation : Two Cavity Klystron
 Bunching Process : Two Cavity Klystron
• Once the electrons leave the buncher cavity, they drift with a velocity along
the space between two cavities.
• The effect of velocity modulation produces, bunching of electron beam or
current modulation.
• The electrons that pass the buncher cavity with zero voltage travel with
unchanged velocity and become the bunching center.
• Electrons that pass the bunching cavity during positive half cycles of
microwave input become faster and electrons that pass during the negative
half cycle become slower.
Bunching Process : Two Cavity Klystron
 Bunching Process : Two Cavity Klystron
ta = time at which maximum retardation occur
tb = time at which electrons have uniform velocity
tc = time at which maximum acceleration occur
• Bunching centre is the point at which electron density is maximum.
• The distance to the bunching centre,
Bunching Process : Two Cavity Klystron
Bunching Process : Two Cavity Klystron
Bunching Process : Two Cavity Klystron
Output Power and Beam Loading : Two Cavity Klystron
• The difference between the exit
and entrance energies must be
supplied by the buncher cavity to
bunch the electron beam.
• Thus the electron beam is
energised by energy of the cavity.
• This phenomenon is known as
beam loading.
• The magnitude of induced current
under beam loading is given by,
 Reflex Klystron
• The reflex klystron is a single cavity variable frequency microwave generator
of low power and low efficiency.
• This is most widely used in applications where variable frequency is desired as
1. In radar receivers.
2. Local oscillator in microwave receivers
3. Signal source in microwave generator of variable frequency.
4. Portable microwave links.
5. Pump oscillator in parametric amplifier.
Reflex Klystron
 Reflex Klystron
Construction
• It consists of an electron gun, a filament surrounded by cathode and a
focusing electrode at cathode potential.
• The electron beam is accelerated towards the anode cavity (positive
potential).
• After passing the gap in the cavity; electrons travel towards a repeller
electrode which is at a high negative potential VR.
• The electrons never trash the repeller because of the negative field and are
returned back towards the gap.
• Under suitable conditions, the electrons give more energy to the gap than
they took from the gap on their forward journey and oscillators are sustained.
 Reflex Klystron
Working
• The RF voltage that is produced across the gap by the cavity oscillations act
on the electron beam to cause velocity modulation.
• er is the reference electron taken as the one that passes the gap on its way to
the repeller at the time when the gap voltage is zero and going negative.
• This electron is unaffected, overshoots the gap and is ultimately returned to it
having penetrated some distance into the repeller space.
• The early electron ee that passes the gap before the reference electron,
experiences a positive voltage at the gap.
• This electron is accelerated and moves with greater velocity and penetrates
deep into repeller space.
• This electron will take slightly greater time than the reference electron to
return to the gap.
 Reflex Klystron
Working
• The late electron el that passes through the gap later than reference electron
experiences negative voltage at the gap.
• This electron is retarded and shortens its stay in the repeller space and will
return earlier to the gap as compared to the reference electron.
• So, the late electron will be able to catch up with ee and eR electrons forming
the bunch.
• Bunches occur once per cycle centered on the reference electron.
• These bunch transfer maximum energy to the gap to get sustained
oscillations.
 Multi Cavity Klystron
• The difference between the exit
and entrance energies must be
supplied by the buncher cavity to
bunch the electron beam.
• Thus the electron beam is
energised by energy of the cavity.
• This phenomenon is known as
beam loading.
• The magnitude of induced current
under beam loading is given by,
 Helix Travelling Wave Tube
• Travelling wave tubes (TWTs) are widely used as broadband low and medium power
microwave amplifier.
• In TWT instead of cavity resonator, a periodic slow wave structure is used.
• Its function is to reduces the velocity of RF electromagnetic wave.
• It is a device in which there exist a continuous interaction between electron beam
and RF field.
• To prolong the interaction between electron beam and RF field, it is necessary to
ensure that both are travelling in the same direction with nearly same velocity.
• This is differ from the Klystron in which the electron beam travels and the RF field is
stationary.
• The electron beam velocity is nearly equal to 10% of velocity of light.
• However RF field travel with velocity of light. So to retard the RF field slow wave
structure such as helix is used instead of cavity resonators.
Helix Travelling Wave Tube
 Helix Travelling Wave Tube
Working
• When RF signal which is to be amplified is applied to the TWT, its initial
velocity is nearly equal to the velocity of light but when the signal propagates
around the turns of the helix, it produces electric field along the axis of the
helix, which propagates along the axial direction with phase velocity which is
small compared to the velocity of light by the slowing factor:

• Where, P is pitch of helix

• 2πa is circumference of helix.
 Helix Travelling Wave Tube
• The axial electric field can now continuously interact with the electron beam.
• The electron entering the helix at zero field is not affected by the signal wave.
• Those electron entering the helix at accelerating field are accelerated and
those are at the retarding field are decelerated thus velocity modulation
takes place and this produces bunching of electron.
• This bunch of electrons travel with the RF field and as consequence the field
continuously acts to increase the bunching i.e velocity and density
modulation occurs simultaneously in this region.
• Since the dc electron velocity, its results into a situation in which more
electrons face the retarding field than the accelerating field, energy is thus
last by the electron beam and becomes more and more stronger and a longer
amplification of the RF signal occurs at the end of the helix.
 Helix Travelling Wave Tube
• There are total four waves, three forward wave and a backward wave are set
up in TWT in presence of the electron beam with four different propagation
constant so there are four modes of travelling wave in the O type TWT.