First lasing of the Dutch Fusion-FEM: 730 kW, 200 GHz

A high-power electrostatic free-electron maser is operated at various frequencies. An output power of 730 kW at 206 GHz is generated with a 7.2 Al 1.77 MeV electron beam, and 360 kW at 167 GHz is generated with a 7.0 A, 1.61 MeV electron beam. It is shown experimentally and by simulations that, depending on the electron beam energy, the FEM can operate in single-frequency regime. First experiments were done without electron beam energy recovery system, and the pulse length was limited to 12 mu s. Nevertheless, many aspects of generation of mm-wave power have been explored, such as the dependency on the electron beam energy and beam current and cavity settings such as the feedback coefficient. The achieved parameters and the FEM dynamics are in good accordance with simulations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.