Generation of Millimeter and Sub-Millimeter Radiation in a Compact Oscillator Utilizing the Two-Stream Instability

摘要

The authors propose a novel technique to produce sub-millimeter radiation; this technique mingles two electron beams of slightly different energies. On their own, these beams will exhibit a two-stream instability. Proper initial modulation of the beams can control this instability, allowing such a device to act as an oscillator at chosen radiation frequencies in the millimeter and sub-millimeter ranges. Simulations of this device show amplification of 100-GHz radiation, with convenient scaling up to 1 THz. Additionally, the experiment merely requires two low-voltage, low-current electron beams and straightforward beam and millimeter-wave optics, with a total beamline length of under a meter. They predict this simple and compact device can generate up to 100 W of 1-THz radiation.