Microwave Pulse Compressor

High-Power Microwave fields with frequencies near 1 GHz have been shown to upset electronic equipment at a distance. The challenge lies in finding a high-power source that provides a pulse of continuous-wave power 20-30 ns in length, with reasonable efficiency, low cost, small size and mass, and peak power approaching 1 GW. Existing sources for this application include magnetrons and switched oscillators. Magnetrons require either large magnets or large Helmholtz coils that require massive power sources. Switched oscillators are too small to store sufficient energy. To address the shortcomings of existing sources, we propose developing a Microwave Pulse Compressor (MPC), which uses a resonant cavity to compress and amplify the power from a source with moderate power. When a spark fires across a shorting switch, the resonance condition of the cavity is lost, causing the cavity to dump its high-power output. MPCs require only a microwave source with modest power to drive them, so they have modest size and weight. MPCs are larger than switched oscillators, so they can store more energy. We will base our compressor on the Nessie source, resulting in a peak power of 350 MW for 20 ns, with a repetition rate of 400 Hz.