ABSTRACT. Accurate temperature measurements and uniform processing of a material in a microwave field can be difficult with thermocouples that perturb the field. Arching and field intensification is particularly a problem with low loss materials that do not couple well. Optical pyrometers offer a non-invasive alternative, but are generally restricted to surface temperature measurements and are usually nonlinear over the temperature range of interest. Improved accuracy over the entire range of interest is possible with an integrated approach using a pc to calibrate the pyrometer against a thermocouple reference. A pyrometer retrofitted microwave processing system that can measure and control from 40^oC to 1600^oC is presented.

---