Advances in Microwave and Radio Frequency Processing : Report from the 8th International Conference on Microwave and High-frequency Heating Held in Bayreuth, Germany, September 3-7, 2001

Prometheus brought fire to mankind Arthur R. von Hippel “Dielectrics and Waves”, 1954 Our contribution? There are only few areas of research and development of a comparable scientific and technological extension as microwave and high frequency processing. “Pr- essing” means not only application of radiation of 300 MHz to 300 GHz f- quency to synthesis, heating or ionisation of matter but also generation, transm- sion and detection of microwave and radio frequency radiation. Microwave and high frequency sources positioned in the orbit are the foun- tion of modern satellite telecommunication systems, gyrotron tubes being pr- ently developed in different countries all over the world will most probably be the major devices to open up a new era of energy supply to mankind be means of - sion plasma. Although initiated by military purposes during the Second World War (RADAR, Radio Detection and Ranging), microwave and high frequency utilisation has spread over almost every important aspect of normal day life since than, from individual mobile phones and kitchen microwave ovens to industrial food processing, production of composites as sustainable building materials, green chemistry, medical applications and finally infrastructure installations like GPS and Galileo, to name only few examples. These different areas of microwave and high frequency radiation application can not be unified within one group of scientists and technologists. There are s- eral distinguished communities active e.g., in the area of telecommunication s- tems, strong microwaves for fusion plasma or plasma based materials processing.

Advances in Microwave and Radio Frequency Processing presents innovative reviews as well as technical papers based on contributions presented at the 8th International Conference on Microwave and High Frequency Heating, September 3-7, 2001 at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Recent applications of microwave and high-frequency radiation in the field of materials processing, chemical synthesis, food processing and in the biomedical area are presented. The book also covers fundamentals of matter radiation interaction, modeling of processes, hardware development, measurement techniques as well as current regulations for industrial applications of microwave and radio frequency heating. It is a valuable tool not only for specialists in this area but also for researchers from universities and industries, who are interested in entering this interdisciplinary field of research and development.