Exploring the compositional freedom in space and chemistry of microwave induced plasmas: An object oriented approach (ETF.6265)

Research
The large variety of the plasma state manifested in the cosmos and laboratories is mainly based on the fact that apart from atoms and molecules plasmas also contain charged particles. It is their presence which makes that plasmas can be created, heated and manipulated by ElectroMagnetic (EM) fields. The tight relationship between fields and charges culminates in the special class of Microwave Induced Plasmas (MIPs). Since these are created and sustained by EM waves with wavelengths (1) that are comparable to the dimensions of technological applications, they can be shaped and sized by manipulating the EM wave structure. For instance, MIPs can be operated remotely and electrodeless within cavities surrounded by dielectric material (2). Moreover, due to the absence of electrodes, corrosive plasma-electrode interactions can be avoided so that there are virtually no limitations in selecting the chemical composition. This implies that there are many different ways to create and operate MIPs. Apart from changing the power and pressure, one can manipulate the size and shape while the freedom in selecting the chemical composition is nearly unlimited.
However, this does not mean that every hypothetical MIP composition can exist in practice; the non-linear wave-plasma interaction is too subtle to be analytically predictable. In order to understand the relation between external control parameters and the resulting plasma conditions, numerical simulations have to be done. Due to the large variety in plasma conditions that has to be explored, an object oriented programming (OOP) style offers the best approach. For the model studies of different MIPs we propose to use and extend our own C++ package PLASIMO.

Utilization
The booming interest in technological plasma physics is based on the fact that the compositional freedom in plasma conditions offers many new potentials in environmental technology, material sciences and lighting industry. In these developments the class of MIPs play a special role. A disadvantage of the fact that so much compositional freedom is offered is that theory formation is complicated and therefore lagging behind. As a consequence, the work on new plasma applications mostly follows the laborious empirical way of trial and error. This inefficient procedure can be avoided if a suitable model-developing platform is available.
Our PLASIMO package, which is already used in several places and for various types of plasmas, is a good candidate for such a platform. Its object-oriented structure makes it possible to assemble models for plasmas of different spatial structures and chemical compositions at runtime. A big advantage is that also non-specialists (in plasma modeling) can construct new plasma compositions using PLASIMO. If we are able to model the interplay between field, fluid and chemistry of microwave induced plasmas we can get also insight in many other technological plasma types.
The Eindhoven University of Technology is surrounded by several companies working with various high-tech plasma applications. By having the combination of a versatile plasma-modeling platform with practical methods for plasma-monitoring we can certainly strengthen our position as a center of excellence in the field of plasma technology.

More information can be found on the website of the research group.

Five companies are involved in this project.