A klystron is a vacuum tube used for production of microwave energy. This device is related to but not the same as a magnetron. The klystron was invented after the magnetron.
Klystrons work using a principle known as velocity modulation. The klystron is a long narrow vacuum tube. There is an electron gun (heater, cathode, beam former) at one end and an anode at the other. In between is a series of donut shaped resonant cavity structures positioned so that the electron beam passes through the hole.
The first and last of the resonant cavities are electrically wired together.
At the cathode the electron beam is relatively smooth. There are natural slight increases and decreases in the electron density of the beam. As the beam passes through the holes of the resonant cavities, any changes in the electron beam cause some changes in the resting electromagnetic (EM) field of the cavities. The EM fields of the cavities begin to oscillate. The oscillating EM field of the cavities then has an effect on the electrons passing through, either slowing down or speeding up their passage.
As electrons are affected by the EM field of the first cavity they change their speed. This change in speed is called velocity modulation. By the time the electrons arrive at the last cavity there are definite groups in the beam. The groups interact strongly with the last cavity causing it to oscillate in a more pronounced way. Some of the last cavity’s energy is tapped off and fed back to the first cavity to increase its oscillations. The stronger first cavity oscillations produce even stronger grouping of the electrons in the beam causing stronger oscillations in that last cavity and so on. This is positive feedback.
The output microwave energy is tapped of for use in high power microwave devices such as long range primary RADAR systems.
The klystron is a coherent microwave source in that it is possible to produce an output with a constant phase. This is a useful attribute when combined with signal processing to measure RADAR target attributes like Doppler shift.
Related microwave vacuum tubes are the Travelling Wave Tube (TWT) and the Travelling Wave Amplifier (TWA). A Hybrid device, which combines some aspects of these devices and the klystron, is a device called a Twice Tron.
