Gyrotron oscillators (gyrotrons) are capable of providing hundreds of
kilo- watts of power at microwave and millimetric wavelengths. From
their con- ception in the late fifties until their successful
development for various ap- plications, gyrotrons have come a long way
technologically and made an ir- reversible impact on both users and
developers. The possible applications of high power millimeter and
sub-millimeter waves from gyrotrons and their variants (gyro-devices)
span a wide range of technologies. The plasma physics community has
already taken advantage of the recent advances of gyrotrons in the areas
of RF plasma production, heating, non-inductive current drive, plasma
stabilization and active plasma diagnostics for magnetic confinement
thermonuclear fusion research, such as lower hybrid current drive (LHCD)
(8 G Hz), electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) (28-170 G Hz),
elec- tron cyclotron current drive (ECCD), collective Thomson scattering
(CTS) and heat-wave propagation experiments. Other important
applications of gy- rotrons are electron cyclotron resonance (ECR)
discharges for the generation of multi-charged ions and soft X-rays, as
well as industrial materials process- ing and plasma chemistry.
Submillimeter wave gyrotrons are employed in high frequency, broadband
electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Additional future
applications await the development of novel high power gyro-amplifiers
and devices for high resolution radar ranging and imaging in atmospheric
and planetary science as well as deep space and specialized satellite
communications and RF drivers for next generation high gradient linear
accelerators (supercolliders).
