u201d around until they are incident upon the microwave absorbing material 24 the channels 12 and 14 are further configured to guide the microwaves to the microwave absorbing material 24 the temperature of the particulate trap 10 may be regulated by the properties and location of the microwave absorbing materials and by controlling the application of the microwave energy fig4 and 5 illustrate end plug heating in a particulate trap 10 of the present invention the end plug 18 in fig4 is comprised of a microwave absorbing material the diesel exhaust is filled with particulates 34 and flows through the honeycomb ceramic walls 20 depositing soot 16 upon the upstream walls 20 of the particulate trap 10 microwaves incident upon the microwave absorbing plug 18 heat the plug 18 and the heated plug 18 initiates the burn off of the soot 16 to clear the walls 20 of the particulate trap 10 as seen by waves 17 that represent the flame front of the particulate burn off in an end plug heating configuration of the present invention the burn off will initially occur where the particulate mass or soot 16 is the highest at the end of the closed end channel 14 and propagate to the rest of the closed end channel 14 the exotherm of a relatively small amount of particulates that are ignited by the end plug 18 will be leveraged to burn a relatively large amount of soot fig5 illustrates the performance of the particulate trap shown in fig4 the exhaust gas velocity will decrease as a function of the distance of the closed end channel 14 the heat generated by the particulate heat release will initially be localized near the end plug 18 and then propagate as a.