Novel investigations in Multipactor effect in ferrites and dielectrics used in high power RF space hardware

The aim of this activity to investigate and evaluate the Multipactor behaviour of non-metals used in high power RF hardware such as cables, connectors, filters, isolators, splitters, etc ... and develop a data base with secondary emission properties of this materials. Additionally, the study shall investigate the Multipactor behaviour between mixed surfaces (dielectric-metal)

The European space industry and ESA programs lack information on RF breakdown (Multipactor) when ferrites and dielectrics are used. Present threshold margins calcuations considering these materials as #8220;worst case metals#8221; which, in many cases, leads to an extremely conservative safety margin with the subsequent development and qualification delta cost to industry.The study shall start with a comprehensive review of theoretical and test-data available in the literature on dielectrics and ferrites, which are used in microwave hardware such as circulators, filters, cables, connectors, amplifiers, etc #8230; A short time and a long time characterisation of Multipactor susceptibility shall be carried out and the corresponding charts for industry reference shall be produced Frequency bands and gaps shall be carefully chosen to provide enough information to produce the susceptibility curves.A number of representative dielectric and ferrite loaded waveguide (parallel plate) test samples shall be built and tested using different surface combinations: metal-dielectric, metal-ferrite, metal A- metal B and ferrite-dielectric.Ceramic materials shall also be investigated and a data base on secondary emission created considering the subsequent aging effect.