High-power Millimeter Wave Radiation for Fundamental and Applied Plasma Studies at the A. V. Gaponov-Grekhov Institute of Applied Physics

Modern gyrotrons provide radiation in a wide range of frequencies and powers, which is used in a variety of areas of fundamental and applied research connected with the problem of plasma formation and heating.The A.V. Gaponov-Grekhov Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is conducting a wide range of studies of gas discharge in a magnetic field under electron cyclotron resonance conditions. For these studies, gyrotron radiation with frequencies from 24 to 75 GHz and a peak power of up to 200 kW is used. The use of such high-frequency and powerful microwave systems has made it possible to obtain original results in the development of sources of intense ion beams of different types, to build compact and powerful neutron generators, to study fundamental kinetic processes in highly nonequilibrium plasma with hot electrons, and to simulate a number of astrophysical phenomena in the magnetospheres of the Earth and other planets.Studies of atmospheric pressure discharge in focused beams of gyrotron radiation with a frequency of up to 1 THz have shown significant prospects for creating of effective sources of extreme ultraviolet radiation with 13.5 and 11.2 nm wavelength based on such plasma, as well as plasma-chemical complexes, for example, for the decomposition of carbon dioxide and other compounds that require innovative methods for effective processing.The brief overview of the recent plasma studies using high power gyrotron radiation in frequency range from 24 GHz to 1 THz are presented, the future prospects of proposed technologies are discussed.