Microwave processing technology has taken on increasing significance in manufacturing. Numerous equipment configurations that take advantage of heating by coupling microwave radiation to materials have been developed for curing, bonding, and sintering materials. Such industrial microwave systems generally operate at centimeter wavelength frequencies of 0.915 or 2.45 GHz. Although they offer new methods of industrial processing, their application is often limited by the degree of coupling of the microwave energy to the materials to be processed.

Recently, millimeter wavelength generators have become available. They have enabled scientists and engineers to devise new methods for processing materials. Radiation in these superhigh frequency (SHF) domains interacts differently with materials than that at centimeter wavelengths. For many materials, the absorption of microwave energy at millimeter wavelengths is significantly greater than at 0.915 or 2.45 GHz. This in turn offers new opportunities for thermally processing materials in significantly shorter processing times, or for modifying their properties.

The recent collapse of the Soviet Union has opened previously closed laboratories and industrial facilities. Discoveries and equipment that were once closely guarded secrets are now being shown and shared. Institutes, which only a few years ago would have been suspicious of Western contacts now welcome potential investors, licensers, or co-workers. Some of these institutes have made significant advances in microwave instrumentation and its application to industrial processing. The Institute of Applied Physics in Nizhny Novhorod (Gorky), Russia, has developed high-power gyrotrons that operate at millimeter wavelengths.