At the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany, a compact gyrotron system was established in 1994 to investigate technological applications in the field of high-temperature materials processing by means of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radiation. Besides the improvement of the system design, research activities are mainly engaged in studies on debindering and sintering of various types of advanced structural and functional ceramics. Due to volumetric heating and enhanced sintering kinetics, the application of microwaves allows one to shorten the processing time and therefore reduce energy consumption. Besides these effects, microwave technology gives the unique possibility of influencing the microstructure and physical properties of the ceramic materials. This paper will discuss the benefits of the mm-wave technology with respect to sintering of structural ceramics, such as TiO/sub 2/-ZrO/sub 2/-MgO multicomponent ceramics, nanocrystalline oxide ceramics, and Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/, as well as lead-zirconate-titanate piezoceramics as one of the most interesting classes of functional ceramics.

The physical explanation of electromagnetic loss mechanism for microwave heating of powdered metals is presented in this letter. A theoretical model is proposed to simulate and analyze the heating process. An experiment has been performed to prove the theory.

A spherical pore in the ionic crystalline material subjected to a linearly polarized microwave radiation is shown to flatten along the electric field vector. The deformation of the pore occurs due to rectification of high-frequency flows of charged vacancies in the course of their nonlinear interaction with the electric field near the pore surface. The estimates show that the effect is most pronounced in the materials with a significant contribution of mobile vacancies into microwave absorption. Preferred orientation of pores has been observed experimentally in a zirconia ceramic sample sintered under heating by a linearly polarized microwave radiation.