Analysis of the electromagnetic radiation generated by a multipactor discharge occurring within a microwave passive component

Multipactoring is a non-linear phenomenon that appears in high-power microwave equipment operating under vacuum conditions and causes several undesirable effects. In this paper, a theoretical and experimental study of the RF spectrum radiated by a multipactor discharge, occurring within a realistic microwave component based on rectangular waveguides, is reported. The electromagnetic coupling of a multipactor current to the fundamental propagative mode of a uniform waveguide has been analysed in the context of the microwave network theory. The discharge produced under a single-carrier RF voltage regime has been approached as a shunt current source exciting such a mode in a transmission-line gap region. By means of a simple equivalent circuit, this model allows prediction of the harmonics generated by the discharge occurring in a realistic passive waveguide component. Power spectrum radiated by a third-order multipactor discharge has been measured in an E-plane silver-plated waveguide transformer, thus validating qualitatively the presented theory to simulate the noise generated by a single-carrier multipactor discharge. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.