System and method for recovering power from a traveling wave tube

摘要

A traveling wave tube incorporates a collector having a plurality of collector electrodes, one or more of which is operated at a potential below that of the cathode so as to collect electrons having associated energies greater than the cathode potential (EK), and thereby act as a high impedance current source. The current from the collector electrode operated below the cathode potential (EK) is converted by a power converter to an alternating current signal that can be either magnetically coupled to the high voltage transformer (T1) of the traveling wave tube power supply, or coupled to an external load with a transformer (T2), thereby improving the operating efficiency of the traveling wave tube system.