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This paper presents a review of the experimental achievements related to the development of high-power gyrotron oscillators for long-pulse or CW operation and pulsed gyrotrons for many applications. In addition, this work gives a short overview on the present development status of frequency step-tunable and multi-frequency gyrotrons, coaxial-cavity multi-megawatt gyrotrons, gyrotrons for technological and spectroscopy applications, relativistic gyrotrons, large orbit gyrotrons (LOGs), quasi-optical gyrotrons, fast- and slow-wave cyclotron autoresonance masers (CARMs), gyroklystrons, gyro-TWT amplifiers, gyrotwystron amplifiers, gyro-BWOs, gyro-harmonic converters, gyro-peniotrons, magnicons, free electron masers (FEMs), and dielectric vacuum windows for such high-power mm-wave sources. Gyrotron oscillators (gyromonotrons) are mainly used as high-power millimeter wave sources for electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH), electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD), stability control, and diagnostics of magnetically confined plasmas for clean generation of energy by controlled thermonuclear fusion. The maximum pulse length of commercially available 140 GHz, megawatt-class gyrotrons employing synthetic diamond output windows is 30 min (CPI and European KIT-SPC-THALES collaboration). The world record parameters of the European tube are as follows: 0.92 MW output power at 30-min pulse duration, 97.5% Gaussian mode purity, and 44% efficiency, employing a single-stage depressed collector (SDC) for energy recovery. A maximum output power of 1.5 MW in 4.0-s pulses at 45% efficiency was generated with the QST-TOSHIBA (now CANON) 110-GHz gyrotron. The Japan 170-GHz ITER gyrotron achieved 1 MW, 800 s at 55% efficiency and holds the energy world record of 2.88 GJ (0.8 MW, 60 min) and the efficiency record of 57% for tubes with an output power of more than 0.5 MW. The Russian 170-GHz ITER gyrotron obtained 0.99 (1.2) MW with a pulse duration of 1000 (100) s and 53% efficiency. The prototype tube of the European 2-MW, 170-GHz coaxial-cavity gyrotron achieved in short pulses the record power of 2.2 MW at 48% efficiency and 96% Gaussian mode purity. Gyrotrons with pulsed magnet for various short-pulse applications deliver P out  = 210 kW with τ  = 20 μs at frequencies up to 670 GHz ( η  ≅ 20%), P out  = 5.3 kW at 1 THz ( η  = 6.1%), and P out  = 0.5 kW at 1.3 THz ( η  = 0.6%). Gyrotron oscillators have also been successfully used in materials processing. Such technological applications require tubes with the following parameters: f   >  24 GHz, P out  = 4–50 kW, CW, η   >  30%. The CW powers produced by gyroklystrons and FEMs are 10 kW (94 GHz) and 36 W (15 GHz), respectively. The IR FEL at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in the USA obtained a record average power of 14.2 kW at a wavelength of 1.6 μm. The THz FEL (NOVEL) at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Russia achieved a maximum average power of 0.5 kW at wavelengths 50–240 μm (6.00–1.25 THz).

The coherent generation of light, from masers to lasers, relies upon the specific structure of the individual emitters that lead to gain. Devices operating as lasers in the few-emitter limit provide opportunities for understanding quantum coherent phenomena, from terahertz sources to quantum communication. Here we demonstrate a maser that is driven by single-electron tunneling events. Semiconductor double quantum dots (DQDs) serve as a gain medium and are placed inside a high-quality factor microwave cavity. We verify maser action by comparing the statistics of the emitted microwave field above and below the maser threshold.

Heat engines, which cyclically transform heat into work, are ubiquitous in technology. Lasers and masers may be viewed as heat engines that rely on population inversion or coherence in the active medium. Here we put forward an unconventional paradigm of a remarkably simple and robust electromagnetic heat-powered engine that bears basic differences to any known maser or laser: The proposed device makes use of only one Raman transition and does not rely on population inversion or coherence in its two-level working medium. Nor does it require any coherent driving. The engine can be powered by the ambient temperature difference between the sky and the ground surface. Its autonomous character and “free” power source make this engine conceptually and technologically enticing.

Since their discovery in 2007 1 , much effort has been devoted to uncovering the sources of the extragalactic, millisecond-duration fast radio bursts (FRBs) 2 . A class of neutron stars known as magnetars is a leading candidate source of FRBs 3 , 4 . Magnetars have surface magnetic fields in excess of 10 14 gauss, the decay of which powers a range of high-energy phenomena 5 . Here we report observations of a millisecond-duration radio burst from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154, with a fluence of 1.5 ± 0.3 megajansky milliseconds. This event, FRB 200428 (ST 200428A), was detected on 28 April 2020 by the STARE2 radio array 6 in the 1,281–1,468 megahertz band. The isotropic-equivalent energy released in FRB 200428 is 4 × 10 3 times greater than that of any radio pulse from the Crab pulsar—previously the source of the brightest Galactic radio bursts observed on similar timescales 7 . FRB 200428 is just 30 times less energetic than the weakest extragalactic FRB observed so far 8 , and is drawn from the same population as the observed FRB sample. The coincidence of FRB 200428 with an X-ray burst 9 – 11 favours emission models that describe synchrotron masers or electromagnetic pulses powered by magnetar bursts and giant flares 3 , 4 , 12 , 13 . The discovery of FRB 200428 implies that active magnetars such as SGR 1935+2154 can produce FRBs at extragalactic distances. Observations of the fast radio burst FRB 200428 coinciding with X-rays from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154 indicate that active magnetars can produce fast radio bursts at extragalactic distances.

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers belonging to the International GNSS Service (IGS) are equipped with different types of clocks, such as internal crystal quartz clocks, rubidium and cesium atomic clocks, as well as hydrogen masers. These clocks are characterized by different phase and frequency accuracies and stabilities, resulting in different systematic clock time series patterns. We analyze the clock offsets between different GNSS systems, provide noise characteristics of the undifferenced and differenced clock parameters, and detect systematic patterns of the clocks. The time series of the receiver clocks are dominated by the diurnal, semidiurnal, and sometimes terdiurnal signals with amplitudes up to several meters. Hydrogen masers provide the highest clock stability, and the lowest is by internal clocks. However, there are also groups of very stable internal clocks that perform similarly to low-performing hydrogen masers and rubidium clocks. The interquartile ranges for epoch-differenced clock parameters fall between 3 and 250 mm for the best hydrogen masers and the worst internal clocks, respectively.

The local position invariance principle of general relativity stipulates that non-gravitational experiments should give outcomes that are independent of the position and orientation of the reference frames in which they have been performed. Here, we study the change in the rates of clocks on Earth with the spatial change of the solar potential, constraining the variation of a non-gravitational interaction—the hyperfine splitting in hydrogen and caesium atoms—to β = (2.2 ± 2.5) × 10−7, a factor of two improvement over previous estimates. Our result is based on the comparison between the long-term fractional frequency variation of four hydrogen masers that are part of an ensemble of clocks comprising the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, and the fractional frequencies of primary frequency standards operated by leading metrology laboratories in the United States, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom over a period of more than 14 years. Using our results together with the previous best estimates of β, we impose strict limits on the variation of fundamental constants, resulting in a test of general relativity with an unprecedented level of precision.

We investigated flux variability of 22 GHz water masers in W49 N, which have been observed for three epochs in the early year of 2017 using KaVA. We used angular resolution and Doppler velocity conditions to specify the identical maser features in each epoch. The flux variability of water masers was defined as the ratio of flux intensity varied by increasing more than five times of the first epoch and to be found as the features in all three epochs. We found three bright features with their weighted local standard of rest (LSR) velocities at -92.25±0.56, -19.28±0.26 and +64.81±0.32 km s−1. Two features were located in the blueshifted and a feature in the redshifted outflows. To understand the environment of the W49 N star forming region, we, therefore, consider the distribution of water masers compared to other thermal molecular line emissions.

We imaged the excited OH maser line at 6.035 GHz associated with the 6.7 GHz methanol masers in a selected sample of high-mass young stellar objects using the European VLBI Network. The excited OH emission was found in a survey of methanol maser sources carried out since 2018 with the Torun 32-m telescope. The overlap of radial velocities of spectral features of methanol and excited OH suggested that both lines arose in the same volume of gas, therefore, we verified this hypothesis with the interferometric data. Here, we present the first images at the milliarcsecond scale of both maser transitions and identify the Zeeman pairs at the ex-OH line estimating the strength of the magnetic field in G43.149+00.013 (W49N).

An initial characterization and performance assessment of the COMPASS/BeiDou-2 regional navigation system is presented. Code and carrier phase measurements on up to three frequencies have been collected in March 2012 with a small regional network of monitoring stations. The signal and measurement quality are analyzed and compared with the Japanese Quasi Zenith Satellite System. A high level of stability is demonstrated for the inter-frequency carrier phase biases, which will facilitate the application of triple-frequency undifferenced ambiguity resolution techniques in future precise point positioning applications. The performance of the onboard Rubidium frequency standards is evaluated in comparison to ground-based hydrogen masers and shown to be well competitive with other GNSS satellite clocks. Precise orbit and clock solutions obtained in post-processing are used to study the presently achievable point positioning accuracy in COMPASS/BeiDou-2-only navigation. Finally, the benefit of triple-frequency measurements and extra-wide-lane ambiguity resolution is illustrated for relative positioning on a short baseline.