Traveling-wave tube having lossy material walls separating adjacent oscillation suppression resonant cavities coupled to slow-wave structure interaction cells

Claim 1

A TRAVELING-WAVE TUBE COMPRISING: MEANS FOR PROVIDING A STREAM OF ELECTRONS ALONG A PREDETERMINED PATH, SLOW-WAVE STRUCTURE MEANS DEFINING A PLURALITY OF INTERCOUPLED INTERACTION CELLS DISPOSED SEQUENTIALLY ALONG AND ABOUT SAID PREDETERMINED PATH FOR PROPAGATING ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE ENERGY IN SUCH MANNER THAT IT INTERACTS WITH SAID STREAM OF ELECTRONS, MEANS DEFINING A PLURALITY OF CAVITIES SEQUENTIALLY DISPOSED ALONG A DIRECTION PARALLEL TO SAID PREDETERMINED PATH, EACH OF SAID CAVITIES BEING ELECTROMAGNETICALLY COUPLED TO ONE OF SAID INTERACTION CELLS AND BEING RESONANT AT A PRESELECTED FREQUENCY, SAID CAVITY DEFINING MEANS INCLUDING WALL MEANS AT LEAST A PORTION OF WHICH IS OF LOSSY MATERIAL, SAID WALL MEANS DEFINING AN APERTURE FOR PROVIDING ELECTROMAGNETIC COUPLING DIRECTLY BETWEEN SAID ADJACENT ONES OF SAID CAVITIES, AND SUBTANTIALLY LOSSLESS DIELECTRIC MATERIAL DISPOSED IN EACH OF SAID CAVITIES.