Efficiency enhancement of anomalous-Doppler electron cyclotron masers with tapered magnetic field

The efficiency of slow-wave electron cyclotron masers (ECM) is usually low, thus limiting the practical applications. Here, a method of tapered magnetic field is introduced for the efficiency enhancement of the slow-wave ECM. The numerical calculations show that the tapered magnetic-field method can enhance the efficiency of slow-wave ECM significantly. The effect of beam electron velocity spread on the efficiency has also been studied. Although the velocity spread reduces the efficiency, a great enhancement of efficiency can still be obtained by the tapered magnetic field method.