Between February 17 and 20, 2004, approximately fifty scientists from ten countries came together at the Institute of Applied Physics (IAP), Nizhny Novgorod, Russia to participate in a NATO sponsored Advanced Research Workshop whose appellation is re flected in the title of this volume, namely Quasi Optical Control of Intense Microwave Transmission. The fashionable label "quasi optical " has come into use in recent decades to denote structures whose characteristic dimensions exceed (sometimes by large factors) the free space radiation wavelength. Such structures were and are developed to replace the traditional single eigenmode ones in situations when high frequenc ies (short wavelengths) are combined with high powers, a combination that could otherwise lead to RF breakdown and high Ohmic wall heating rates. Treatments of guided wave propagation in oversized structures is aimed at pr eserving the propagating field coherence and thus to provide efficient transmission of RF power to remote destinations such as antennas, microwave ovens, plasma chemical reactors, nuclear fusion machines, and the like.

This volume assembles the texts of presentations given at the NATO-sponsored Advanced Research Workshop on Quasi-Optical Transmission of High-Power Microwaves, held in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia in February 2004. The presentations bridge a wide range of technical areas, but share common tools of analysis and design. Applications of quasi-optics extend to the use of high-power microwavesa "including millimeter-wavesa" for radar and communications (especially deep space millimeter-wave systems, space debris detection radar, and radar for the detection of small targets moving over heavy clutter); particle accelerators (especially for a future high-acceleration-gradient electron-positron collider); plasma research (especially for controlled nuclear fusion and waste decontamination); and material processing (in particular, ceramic sintering with millimeter-waves, and the coating of metal surfaces with protective dielectric films.). Scientists and engineers working in any of these areas should benefit significantly from exposure to this broad range of timely expositions authored by many of the worlda (TM)s foremost experts in these fields. The editors, themselves being original, principal proponents of many of the concepts discussed here, have integrated important contributions from many fields into a cohesive entity.