Design of A Ka-band Mode Converter with

Rectangular Waveguide TE10 Mode to a Coaxial

Waveguide TM01 Mode
Li Zhong1Xianrong Zhang2
1

Departments of Electronic Information, Chengdu Polytechnic, No. 15, North Yizhou Avenue, Chengdu 610041, Peoples
Republic of China
2
Soutwest China Institute of Electronic Technology, No. 85, Yingkang West Road, Chengdu 610036, Peoples Republic of China.

Abstract-A novel mode converter is introduced in this paper,

transferring the TE10 mode, which is the dominant mode in
rectangular waveguide into TM01 mode in coaxial waveguide.
The simulation and optimization is based on CST and good
results have been achieved with the VSWR 1.2 at 34.5GHz center
frequency and the efficiency is greater than 86%. The test results
agree well with the simulation, certifying the feasibility of the
structure.

I.

taken on in Fig. 1. For the need of the project, the outer and
inner radiuses of the conductor are b=7.7mm and a=3.1mm
separately. Port 1 represents the rectangular waveguide input
port and Port 2 is the coaxial waveguide output port. The Port
3 is the place where the electron beam come the left and Port 4
is the short stub port.
Port 1

INTRODUCTION

Mode converter has been widely used in the applications of

high power capacity microwave, one of which is in gyrotron.
In order to get high power output, higher harmonic modes are
often used in gyrotron. Thus, it is important to design the
mode-converter of good characteristics to solve the problem of
gyrotron such as the transferring of high-modes, higher modes
to the dominant mode, changing of polarization direction of
working mode, the selectivity of the working mode together
with the inhibiting of the competition mode.
The mode-converters can usually be divided into three types
based on the function: (1) the converter of the output modes,
such as Vlasov quasi-optical converters [1]-[2]and rippledwall converters [3]-[4], mainly used to changing the polar
direction of the working mode; (2) to realize the selectivity of
the working modes and inhibit the non-working modes, thus,
the stability of the gyrotron can be improved[5]-[8]; (3)can be
used to realize the coupling function of the inputs[9], mainly
to achieve good coupling between the input mode and the
working mode, securing the efficient interaction between the
electron and the working mode.
The mode-converter in this paper is used to solve the
problem that the selectivity of the working mode and the
inhibition of the non-working modes, and applied to the
transferring from TE10 mode, which is the dominant mode in
rectangular waveguide into TM01 mode in coaxial waveguide.

Port 3
Port 2

Port 4

Figure. 1. The configuration of the mode converter.

Figure. 2. The TM01 mode electromagnetic field distribution in coaxial

waveguide.

Thus, the Kc of the TM mode in coaxial waveguide can be

given as:

kc |

nS
(n=1,2,3,) .
ba

(1)

The cutoff length of the coaxial waveguide TMmn can be

expressed as:

OcTMmn

n
b  a 
2

7.7  3.1
2

2.3mm

(2)

For TE11 mode

II. THE CONFIGURATION AND DESIGN OF THE MODECONVERTER FROM THE TE10 MODE TO TM01 MODE

kc11 |

2
ab

(3)

Therefore, the cutoff wavelength of TE11 mode can be

approximated by

The configuration of the mode-converter with rectangular

waveguide TE10 mode to coaxial waveguide TM01 mode is
____________________________________
978-1-4799-44- /14/$31.00 2014 IEEE



OcTE11 | S (a  b) 33.912mm (4)

Based on the design instructions, with the help of CST, the

simulation of the configuration is done and the final
parameters are listed as follows: The diameter of the out
conductor is 15.4mm, and the dimension of input Port 1 is
designed as R320 standard waveguide. a=7.112 mm, b=3.556
mm the dimension of short stub Port 4 is a1=8.31mm
b=3.556 mm a and a1 is the width of the rectangular
waveguide port 1 and port 4,b is the height of the rectangular
waveguide, the length is 2.2mm ,the dimension of inner
conductor is L1=2.87 mmL2=3.02 mmL3=0.93 mm
L4=3.07 mmL5=7.67 mmL6=1 mmL7=3 mmL8=1
mmD=6.2 mm,D1=8 mm,D3=6.98mm. The arc of Port 1
and Port 2 are r=0.3mm.
In the simulations, the material of the converter was
assumed to be PEC, a TE10 mode was excited from the
rectangular waveguide input port 1, and the transformed
modes at the coaxial waveguide output port 2 and the reflected
modes at the input port were detected.

The process of the design is as follows: We made the wide

ridge of the rectangular waveguide vertical with the axis of the
coaxial waveguide. The port1 of the rectangular waveguide is
connected to the hole in the coaxial waveguide, enabling the
magnetic field of the TE10 to be parallel with that of the TM01
of the coaxial waveguide. Thus, the TM01 mode is excited in
the coaxial transmission line. Besides, the electric field lines
of the TE10 mode in rectangular waveguide bends in the
coupling area, generating the electric component of the axis
EZ and transverse component ET, in which the axial
component EZ will excite the TM01 mode in the coaxial
waveguide and the transverse component ET will excite the
useless TE11 mode. In order to discharge the TE11 mode and
other higher modes, short film is added Og 2 TM01
mode away from the center axis of the rectangular
waveguide and metal ring resonator is placed about Og 4
(TE11 mode) away from the center of the rectangular in
short route. Because the direction of the electric field is
parallel to the plane of the ring resonator, TE11 mode is shortcircuit in the coaxial waveguide, and is equivalent as open
circuit after traveling the distance of Og 4 (TE11 mode)
back to the coupling hole. Moreover, the input impedance is
infinite, so there is no TE11 mode coupling in the coaxial
waveguide. Since the direction of the TM01 mode is vertical
with the plane of the ring resonator, it satisfies the boundary
condition, making no influence on the TM01 mode in the
coaxial waveguide. And Og 2 (TM01 mode) short circuit
produces no input impedance at the coupling pole for the
coaxial TM01 mode. So, the rectangular waveguide has a good
match with the coaxial waveguide.
For the practical need of the project, the left side of modeconverter in this paper can not be designed as short circuit for
the reason that there is electron beam traveling. Taking all the
matters into consideration, we finally add two metal
small discs on the two sides of the coaxial transmission line
separately. Besides, rectangular waveguide short minors are
placed on the symmetric plane which is symmetric with the
input rectangular waveguide to eliminate its useless mode
improve the efficiency of the transferring. The detailed
parameter of the mode converter is presented in Fig.3.

Magnitude(dB)

-4
-8
S11(TE10_TE10)

-12

S21(TM01_TE10)

-16
-20
-24
33.8 34.0 34.2 34.4 34.6 34.8 35.0
Frequency(GHz)
0.9

Conversion efficiency

0.8
0.7
0.6

TEM_S2(1)1(1)
TE11_S2(2)1(1)

0.5

TE21_S2(3)1(1)
TE31_S2(4)1(1)

0.4

TM01_S2(5)1(1)

0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
33.8

34.0

34.2

34.4

34.6

34.8

35.0

Frequency(GHz))

Figure.4. The simulated of the S-parameters

(a) The S11 and S21 parameters (b) The S2(n)1(1) parameters

From Fig. 4a, the VSWR is 1.2 at 34.5GHz and

transmission loss less than 1.95dB and from Figure 4b, the
efficiency has been greater than 80% ranged from 33.84 to
34.76GHz.The total efficiency reached at Port 3 is less than
22% with power transmitted less than 6%.

Figure.3 The configuration of the mode-converter with parameters



According to the electromagnetic field distribution shown

in Fig.2 , it determines the transmission model of the port2 .
The conversion efficiencies of different modes, defined as the
output power of each mode normalized to the input power of
TE10 mode, are presented in Fig. 4b. It is shown that five
coaxial waveguide modes are generated from the converter.
They are TEM, TE11, TE21, TE31 and TM01 coaxial waveguide
modes. TM01 mode is the desired one, whose conversion
efficiency is about 86% at 34.3 GHz and greater than80% in
the frequency range of 33.82-34.72 GHz. Whereas, the
magnitudes of the undesired modes, namely TEM, TE11,
TE21,TE31 and TM01 , are very small, which are both less than
14% in 33.82-34.72 GHz. Thus, we have got wonderful
results.

Magnitude(dB)

-5

-15
-20

S11
S11
S21
S21

m easured
sim ulated
sim ulated
m easured

-25
33.8 34.0 34.2 34.4 34.6 34.8 35.0
Frequency(GHz)

Figure. 6. The back to back tested and the simulated of S parameters.

III. FABRICATION AND THE TESTMENT OF THE

MODE CONVERTER

IV. CONCLUSION
A novel mode converter transferring the rectangular
waveguide TE10 mode to TM01 mode in coaxial waveguide
has been designed and fabricated by designing metal ring in
the inner conductor to eliminate the influence of other modes
is documented in this paper. Back to back cold tested good
agreement between experiments and simulations was observed.
Therefore, this mode converter can be successfully being used
in many high-power applications.

The fabricated mode converter is shown in Fig. 5a. Made in

copper for the whole structure and in order to lower down the
loss, the face is plated with silver. To test the characteristic,
the method of back to back cold test has been utilized in the
process of the testament.
A back to back cold test method is used in the test in Fig. 5b,
the S11 and S21 parameter has been tested and shown in Fig.
6. In this process, the input port is connected with the standard
R320 Coax-waveguide mode converter and the two sides of
the coaxial waveguide is connected by the metal board to
support inner conductor.
In Fig. 6, the tested curves together with the simulation
have been clearly taken on. Agilent 8722ES has been applied
in the test and good results have been achieved with S11 less
than -10dB ranged from 34.25 -34.72GHz. By comparing the
simulation with test curves, a good agreement has been
achieved though the tested frequency of the S11 and S21
parameters have moved a little higher, which is caused by the
fabrication error and the installation process. So, we can draw
a conclusion that the method is of great feasibility.

REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

(a)

-10

(b)

Figure.5. (a)The fabricated figure of the mode converter.(b) The back to back
tested of the converter.



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