Suppressing high-power microwave dielectric multipactor by the sawtooth surface

This paper theoretically and experimentally researches the effect of a periodic sawtooth surface on vacuum multipactor. Dynamic calculation and particle-in-cell simulation are applied to analyze the electron impact energy and multipactor scenario on the periodic isosceles triangular surface with different slope angles and heights. It has been discovered that, with the slope angle increasing, the impact energy significantly decreases to be lower than the first crossover energy of the secondary yield curve, leading to suppressed multipactor. S-band high power microwave dielectric breakdown experiment, with microsecond pulse length, was conducted. It is confirmed by experiment that the periodic sawtooth surface with sufficiently large slope angle (such as 45 degrees) can effectively increase the breakdown threshold of about 2 compared to the flat surface. (C) 2009 American Institute Of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3200900]