System and experiment study for millimeter wave sintering of ceramics

A pulsed gyrotron-based system has been set up in order to investigate millimeter wave sintering of ceramics. This paper describes the facility, including the gyrotron, propagation system, work chamber, and control system. An initial experiment on ceramic sintering has been completed for 98%Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/+1%SiO/sub 2/+1%MgO samples with the facility, which shows that 93.45% theoretical density can be reached for a sintering temperature of 1150/spl deg/C for 30 minutes.