RF design and tests on a broadband, high-power coaxial quadrature hybrid applicable to ITER ICRF transmission line system for load-resilient operations

RF design and network analyzer tests of broadband, amplitude-balanced coaxial hybrid junctions are presented. We have designed two 3 dB hybrid splitters with 9 and 12 in. coaxial transmission lines applicable to ITER ICRF for load-resilient operations using ANSYS HFSS. Amplitude-balanced broadband responses were obtained with the combination of impedance reductions of longitudinal and transverse branches in unequal proportion, length change of 50 Ω lines and diameter change of high impedance lines connected transversely to the T-section of the hybrid splitter, respectively. We have fabricated and RF tested the 9 in. coaxial hybrid coupler. We obtained an excellent coupling flatness of −3.2 ± 0.2 dB, phase difference of 4 degrees and return loss of 16 dB in 40-55 MHz. The measured data of 9 in. hybrid splitter is highly consistent with HFSS simulations. We found that the proposed 3 dB hybrid splitter can be tunable with amplitude-balanced, broadband response by changing dielectric insulators to keep the inner and outer conductors of coaxial line apart. The proposed 3 dB hybrid splitter can be utilized for load-resilient operations in a wide range of antenna load variations due to mode transitions or edge localized modes (ELMs) in fusion plasmas.