Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Obsolete 9 GHz magnetron tube and magnets from a Soviet aircraft radar. The tube is embraced between the poles of two
horseshoe-shaped alnico magnets (top, bottom), which create a
magnetic eld along the axis of the tube. The microwaves are
emitted from the waveguide aperture (top) which in use is attached to a waveguide conducting the microwaves to the radar
antenna. Modern tubes use rare earth magnets which are much
less bulky.
Magnetron with section removed to exhibit the cavities. The cathode in the center is not visible. The waveguide emitting microwaves is at the left. The magnet producing a eld parallel
to the long axis of the device is not shown.
much more common as a low-cost microwave source for tube designs that would avoid his patents. One concept
microwave ovens. In this form, approximately one billion used a magnetic eld instead of an electrical charge to
magnetrons are in use today.[5][6]
control current ow, leading to the development of the
magnetron tube. In this design, the tube was made with
two electrodes, typically with the cathode in the form of
a metal rod in the center, and the anode as a cylinder
1 Construction and operation
around it. The tube was placed between the poles of a
horseshoe magnet[8] arranged such that the magnetic eld
1.1 Conventional tube design
was aligned parallel to the axis of the electrodes.
With no magnetic eld present, the tube operates as a
diode, with electrons owing directly from the cathode
to the anode. In the presence of the magnetic eld, the
electrons will experience a force at right angles to their
direction of motion, according to the left-hand rule. In
this case, the electrons follow a curved path between the
cathode and anode. The curvature of the path can be
controlled by varying either the magnetic eld, using an
electromagnet, or by changing the electrical potential beIn an electron tube, the current of electrons emitted by tween the electrodes.
the cathode can ow in only one direction, from the cathode to the anode. This property can be used to convert At very high magnetic eld settings the electrons are
bi-directional current ow alternating current, to one- forced back onto the cathode, preventing current ow. At
directional current ow direct current, a process known the opposite extreme, with no eld, the electrons are free
as "rectication. A tube used for this purpose (usually to ow straight from the cathode to the anode. There is
called a rectier tube) has only two electrodes (which a point between the two extremes, the critical value or
is why it is called a "diode"), a negatively charged cath- Hull cut-o magnetic eld (and cut-o voltage), where
ode, which emits electrons and a positively charged an- the electrons just reach the anode. At elds around this
ode, which attracts the electrons that have been emitted point, the device operates similar to a triode. However,
by the cathode. Thus a current of electrons ows in magnetic control, due to hysteresis and other eects, reone direction only, from the cathode to the anode. (How- sults in a slower and less faithful response to control curever, a two-anode version was also produced, permitting rent than electrostatic control using a control grid in a
full-wave rectication and thus higher DC output energy. conventional triode (not to mention greater weight and
saw limited use in convenThe Type 81 vacuum tube, widely used in 1930s radio complexity), so magnetrons
[8]
tional
electronic
designs.
sets, is an example. It largely replaced the earlier Type
80 single-anode tube.) If a source of alternating current It was noticed that when the magnetron was operating
is connected between the anode and the cathode, current at the critical value, it would emit energy in the radio
will only ow during the half of the alternating current cy- frequency spectrum.[8] This occurs because a few of the
cle when the anode is positive in relation to the cathode, electrons, instead of reaching the anode, continue to cirthus the bi-directional alternating current is converted cle in the space between the cathode and the anode. Due
to a uni-directional direct current. (The two-anode tube to an eect now known as cyclotron radiation, these elecallows DC current to ow during both halves of the alter- trons radiate radio frequency energy. The eect is not
nating current cycle.)
very ecient. Eventually the electrons hit one of the elecIf a third electrode is inserted between the cathode and trodes, so the number in the circulating state at any given
the anode (called a control grid), the ow of electrons be- time is a small percentage of the overall current. It was
tween the cathode and anode can be regulated by varying also noticed that the frequency of the radiation depends
the electric charge on this third electrode. This allows on the size of the tube, and even early examples were built
the resulting electron tube (called a "triode" because it that produced signals in the microwave region.
In a conventional electron tube (vacuum tube), electrons
are emitted from a negatively charged, heated component called the cathode and are attracted to a positively
charged component called the anode. The components
are normally arranged concentrically, placed within a
tubular-shaped container from which all air has been
evacuated, so that the electrons can move freely (hence
the name vacuum tubes, called valves by the British)
now has three electrodes) to function as an "amplier" because small variations in the electric charge applied to the
control grid will result in identical variations in the much
larger current of electrons owing between the cathode
and anode.[7]
1.2
1.4
1.3
Cavity magnetron
Split-anode magnetron
3
a runaway eect.[8]
The original magnetron was very dicult to keep operating at the critical value, and even then the number of
electrons in the circling state at any time was fairly low.
This meant that it produced very low-power signals. Nevertheless, as one of the few devices known to create microwaves, interest in the device and potential improvements was widespread.
of these additional holes, the resonators. The resulting block looks something like the cylinder on a revolver,
with a somewhat larger central hole. (Early models were
actually cut using Colt pistol jigs.) The parallel sides of
the slots acted as a capacitor while the anode block itself
provided an inductor analog. Thus, each cavity formed its
own resonant circuit, the frequency of which was dened
by the energy of the electrons and the physical dimensions
of the cavity.[8]
4
tional electrons will avoid the hot spots and be deposited
further along the anode, as the additional current owing around it arrives too. This causes an oscillating current to form as the current tries to equalize one spot, then
another.[9]
The oscillating currents owing around the cavities, and
their eect on the electron ow within the tube, causes
large amounts of microwave radiofrequency energy to be
generated in the cavities. The cavities are open on one
end, so the entire mechanism forms a single larger microwave oscillator. A tap, normally a wire formed into
a loop, extracts microwave energy from one of the cavities. In some systems the tap wire is replaced by an
open hole, which allows the microwaves to ow into a
waveguide.
As the oscillation takes some time to set up, and is inherently random at the start, subsequent startups will
have dierent output parameters. Phase is almost never
preserved, which makes the magnetron dicult to use
in phased array systems. Frequency also drifts pulse
to pulse, a more dicult problem for a wider array of
radar systems. Neither of these present a problem for
continuous-wave radars, nor for microwave ovens.
3 APPLICATIONS
Output coupling
loop
Resonating cavity
Copper
anode block
Oxide-coated
cathode
Leads to cathode
& heater
A cross-sectional diagram of a resonant cavity magnetron. Magnetic lines of force are parallel to the geometric axis of this structure.
the receiver can be synchronized with an imprecise magnetron frequency. Where precise frequencies are needed,
other devices, such as the klystron are used.
3.2
Heating
3.2 Heating
9.375 GHz 20 kW (peak) magnetron assembly for an early commercial airport radar in 1947. In addition to the magnetron
(right), it contains a TR (transmit/receive) switch tube and the
superheterodyne receiver front end, a 2K25 reex klystron tube
local oscillator and a 1N21 germanium diode mixer. The waveguide aperture (left) is connected to the waveguide going to the
antenna.
3.3 Lighting
In microwave-excited lighting systems, such as a sulfur
lamp, a magnetron provides the microwave eld that is
passed through a waveguide to the lighting cavity containing the light-emitting substance (e.g., sulfur, metal
halides, etc.). These lamps are much more complex than
other methods of lighting, and not commonly used though
ecient.
4 History
In 1912, Swiss physicist Heinrich Greinacher was looking for new ways to calculate the electron mass. He settled
on a system consisting of a diode with a cylindrical anode
HISTORY
working prototype similar to Hollmans cavity magnetron, but added liquid cooling and a stronger cavity.
Randall and Boot soon managed to increase its power output 100 fold. Instead of abandoning the magnetron due
to its frequency instability, they sampled the output signal and synchronized their receiver to whatever frequency
was actually being generated. In 1941, the problem of
frequency instability was solved by coupling (strapping)
alternate cavities within the magnetron. (For an overview
of early magnetron designs, including that of Boot and
Randall, see [24] )
Because France had just fallen to the Nazis and Britain
had no money to develop the magnetron on a massive
scale, Churchill agreed that Sir Henry Tizard should oer
the magnetron to the Americans in exchange for their nancial and industrial help (the Tizard Mission). An early
10 kW version, built in England by the General Electric
Company Research Laboratories, Wembley, London (not
to be confused with the similarly named American company General Electric), was given to the US government
in September 1940. The British magnetron was a thousand times more powerful than the best American transmitter at the time and produced accurate pulses.[25] At
the time the most powerful equivalent microwave producer available in the US (a klystron) had a power of only
ten watts. The cavity magnetron was widely used during
World War II in microwave radar equipment and is often
credited with giving Allied radar a considerable performance advantage over German and Japanese radars, thus
directly inuencing the outcome of the war. It was later
7
described by noted Historian James Phinney Baxter III as
The most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores.[26]
The Bell Telephone Laboratories made a producible
version from the magnetron delivered to America by
the Tizard Mission, and before the end of 1940, the
Radiation Laboratory had been set up on the campus of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop various types of radar using the magnetron. By early 1941,
portable centimetric airborne radars were being tested
in American and British aircraft.[25] In late 1941, the
Telecommunications Research Establishment in Great
Britain used the magnetron to develop a revolutionary
airborne, ground-mapping radar codenamed H2S. The
H2S radar was in part developed by Alan Blumlein and
Bernard Lovell.
Centimetric radar, made possible by the cavity magCaution: radiowaves hazard
netron, allowed for the detection of much smaller objects and the use of much smaller antennas. The combination of small-cavity magnetrons, small antennas, and
high resolution allowed small, high quality radars to be
installed in aircraft. They could be used by maritime
patrol aircraft to detect objects as small as a submarine
periscope, which allowed aircraft to attack and destroy
submerged submarines which had previously been undetectable from the air. Centimetric contour mapping
radars like H2S improved the accuracy of Allied bombers
used in the strategic bombing campaign. Centimetric
gun-laying radars were likewise far more accurate than
the older technology. They made the big-gunned Allied
battleships more deadly and, along with the newly developed proximity fuze, made anti-aircraft guns much more
dangerous to attacking aircraft. The two coupled together
and used by anti-aircraft batteries, placed along the ight
path of German V-1 ying bombs on their way to London,
are credited with destroying many of the ying bombs be- Caution: Poisonous particles for the lungs
fore they reached their target.
Since then, many millions of cavity magnetrons have been
manufactured; while some have been for radar the vast
majority have been for microwave ovens. The use in
radar itself has dwindled to some extent, as more accurate signals have generally been needed and developers
have moved to klystron and traveling-wave tube systems
for these needs.
Some magnetrons have beryllium oxide (beryllia) ceramic insulators, which are dangerous if crushed and inhaled, or otherwise ingested. Single or chronic exposure
can lead to berylliosis, an incurable lung condition. In
addition, beryllia is listed as a conrmed human carcinogen by the IARC; therefore, broken ceramic insulators or
magnetrons should not be directly handled.
7
Maser
Microwave EMP Rie
Radiation Laboratory
Traveling-wave tube
References
REFERENCES
External links
Information
Magnetrons
Inductance-
10
9.1
Text
9.2
Images
9.3
Content license
11
File:Split-anode_magnetron.jpg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Split-anode_magnetron.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Retrieved October 24, 2014 from <a data-x-rel='nofollow' class='external text' href='http:
//www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Electronics/30s/Electronics-1935-09.pdf'>"Microwaves to detect aircraft in Electronics
magazine, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., New York, Vol. 8, No. 9, September 1935, p. 18</a> on http://www.americanradiohistory.com
Original artist: Unknown<a href='//www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718' title='wikidata:Q4233718'><img alt='wikidata:Q4233718'
src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/20px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png'
width='20'
height='11' srcset='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/30px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 1.5x,
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Wikidata-logo.svg/40px-Wikidata-logo.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='1050'
data-le-height='590' /></a>
9.3
Content license