Feasibility Study on Electromagnetic Coupled Type Uniform Microwave Heating Using a Zeroth-Order Resonator

An electromagnetic coupled type microwave heating applicator using a zeroth-order resonator (ZOR) is proposed. The guide wavelength in ZOR can be infinite regardless of the physical length, which enables uniform heating in a wide area. The characteristics of a single ZOR whose zeroth-order resonant frequency is 2.44 GHz were investigated by simulations and experiments. The heating simulation results of the thin film show the length within which the power loss density became more than 50% normalized by the maximum was 0.428λ
0
, where λ
0
is wavelength in vacuum. This means the uniformly heatable length is successfully extended in the 1D direction.