The Electron Cyclotron (EC) system for the ITER tokamak is designed to inject ≥20 MW RF power into the plasma for Heating and Current Drive (H&CD) applications. The EC system consists of up to 26 gyrotrons (between 1 to 2 MW each), the associated power supplies, 24 transmission lines and 5 launchers. The EC system has a diverse range of applications including central heating and current drive, current profile tailoring and control of plasma magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities such as the sawtooth and neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs). This diverse range of applications requires the launchers to be capable of depositing the EC power across nearly the entire plasma cross section. This is achieved by two types of antennas: an equatorial port launcher (capable of injecting up to 20 MW from the plasma axis to mid-radius) and four upper port launchers providing access from inside of mid radius to near the plasma edge. The equatorial launcher design is optimized for central heating, current drive and profile tailoring, while the upper launcher should provide a very focused and peaked current density profile to control the plasma instabilities.The overall EC system has been modified during the past three years taking into account the issues identified in the ITER design review from 2007 and 2008 as well as integrating new technologies. This paper will review the principal objectives of the EC system, modifications made during the past two years and how the design is compliant with the principal objectives.

We report experimental results of the operation of two ferroelectric cathodes of relatively large size. The first cathode had a diameter of 10.2 cm and was built in the Pierce cathode geometry by Integrated Applied Physics (IAP). It achieved emission currents of up to 1.2 kA (15.3 A/cm 2 ) at voltages upto 100 kV, in 150 ns pulses. The second cathode had an annular shape with a diameter of 11.4 cm and a width of 0.25 cm.It was built at MIT to produce an annular electron beam for use in a Gyrotron microwave source. It operated at currents of up to 10 A (1.1 A/cm 2 ) at 8 kV, in 5 µs pulses. Detailed operating characteristics for each of these electron sources are reported. These results indicate that ferroelectric cathodes can be used to produce electron beams of large area and size, with high total operating current and pulse lengths of several microseconds.These sources should be suitable for use in future microwave generation experiments.