Wideband Compact Dielectric-Less Launcher of an X-Band Ferrite Faraday Rotator

A compact dielectric-less launcher for a ferrite filled circular waveguide operating as a Faraday rotator for high peak-power applications is presented. The launcher consists of a 2-section /4 transformer, the first one is an empty quad-ridge waveguide while the second is a ferrite partially filled circular waveguide in such a way that the same ferrite rod is used for both Faraday rotator and launcher transformer and no additional dielectrics and glues are required. The launcher is integrated between two dedicated OMTs, in order to access arbitrarily to both V and H polarizations.Preliminary measurements prove the effectiveness of the architecture proposed.