Design of a CW quasioptical gyrotron for materials processing

Summary form only given, as follows. The quasioptical gyrotron (QOG) is under development at the Naval Research Laboratory as a high power source of millimeter-wave radiation. Recent experimental results include the production of up to 150 kW output power with 20% efficiency in 13 /spl mu/sec pulses. A new application of the QOG is in the rapid sintering of high-strength ceramic materials and other heating processes. Millimeter-wave radiation is expected to heat samples much more uniformly and rapidly than conventional furnaces, resulting in improved material properties. The new experiment is designed to produce 5 kW average power from 75-95 GHz using a 20 kV, 1.5 A dc electron beam. The design of the gyrotron will be presented, including the 70 cm quasioptical resonator with asymmetric output coupling, electron trajectory simulations, single and multimode gyrotron simulations, and microwave optics.