This book aims to comprehensively describe the mechanisms of microwave energy loss through the separate interactions of microwave electric (E) and magnetic (H) fields with materials. In addition, the non-thermal effects in microwave heating are discussed, exploring both thermal phenomena specific to microwaves and non-thermal effects explained by electromagnetic factors, and other mechanisms are introduced. Recently remarked topics of metamaterials (double negative materials) and artificial dielectrics are described as applications of microwave interaction mechanisms of metal/ceramic composites.

This book particularly emphasizes new viewpoints of microwave heating of metals, such as the heating mechanisms of metal particles and their size dependence, in relation to the dielectric properties of metals at microwave frequencies, a transition or an ambiguity of some inorganic materials from dielectric to conductive heating, specific phenomena in microwave heating of composite materials consisting of metal and inorganics, and microwave losses originating from ferromagnetism and magnetoelastic interactions.

The recently reported experimental data are introduced and reviewed, providing thorough understanding based on the fundamentals discussed in earlier chapters.

Noboru Yoshikawa graduated from Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Master course in Graduate School of Engineering at Tohoku University in 1983. He received his Dr. Eng. in 1988. He had been a faculty member (assistant and associate professor) in the department since 1983 and became a program professor in 2022. During his career, he studied in Dep. of Physics at University of California, Riverside, under the undergraduate exchange program between 1977 and 1978. He also stayed at Dept. of Materials Science at University of California, Berkeley, as a visiting researcher in 1997. Both were supported by the Japanese Ministry of Educations, Culture, Sports Science, and Technology (MEXT). He has been a member of the organizing committee of Global Congress on Microwave Energy Application (GCMEA), International Conference of Electromagnetic Processing of Materials (EPM), and others.