An All-metal Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna Design for High-power Microwave Application

In this paper, the evolutionary process, fabrication and measurement of an all-metal antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AMAVA) design are presented for the high-power microwave (HPM) application. Derived from the substrate-loaded antipodal Vivaldi antenna, the proposed antenna is made all metallic to enhance its power handling capacity (PHC). Considering the further improvement of the radiation performance and antenna fixing, rectangular slots and tuning stubs with exponential corner cuts are employed in antenna design. In the air condition, the PHC values of the final proposed antenna are over 8000 W in its operating band. The proposed AMAVA is fabricated and measured in a microwave anechoic chamber. According to the measured results, the −10 dB impedance bandwidth covers 8.3-10.66 GHz, and its deepest resonance reaches −29.7 dB at 9.75 GHz. The measured radiation pattern values are in agreement with simulation values, and its peak gain values at 9.3 GHz, 9.8 GHz and 10.3 GHz are 4.54 dBi, 5.68 dBi and 5.71 dBi, respectively. A PHC experiment is conducted, which verifies the AMAVA is qualified for 8000 W-level PHC.