This paper investigates the properties of traveling wave-beam interaction in a rectangular helix traveling-wave-tube （TWT） for a solid sheet electron beam. The ＂hot＂ dispersion equation is obtained by means of the self-consistent field theory. The small signal analysis,which includes the effects of the beam parameters and slow-wave structure （SWS） parameters,is carried out by theoretical computation. The numerical results show that the bandwidth and the small-signal gain of the rectangular helix TWT increase as the beam current increases;and the beam voltage not obviously influences the small signal gain. Among different rectangular helix structures,the small-signal gain increases as the width of the rectangular helix SWS increases,however,the bandwidth decreases whether structure parameters a and L or ψ and L are fixed or not.In addition,a comparison of the small-signal gain of this structure with a conventional round helix is made.The presented analysis will be useful for the design of the TWT with a rectangular helix circuit.
