Microplasma Devices

Dear Colleagues,

The main purpose of this Issue is to discuss through its invited and contributed articles, miniaturized plasma devices with applications in sensing, actuation, harsh environment signal processing, terahertz signal processing, material processing (deposition, etching and modification), and in medicine.

Plasmas offers many interesting properties that include very low resistance, an ability to carry very large current densities, offer partially charged beams for electro-magnetic field sensing and actuation, has unique ionized material-dependent photoemission for chemical analysis, the ability to decompose materials and biological tissues, bacteria and viruses, and to deposit and process materials. Plasmas come in many different forms: high density plasmas, low density plasmas, “dirty” plasmas, low pressure and high pressure plasmas, magnetized plasmas, to name a few.

Although in most cases plasma devices are quite large with today’s microelectronic devices standards, they do not have to be. There are some advantages in miniaturizing plasma devices that include lowering the operation voltages, integration with other devices or circuits, realizing addressable arrays, or simple arrays for energy management, parallel detection of different substances through their photoemission in a plasma array, plasma array devices to modify gas boundary conditions for propulsion, sensing and treatment, to name a few. Miniaturized plasma switches are extensively used in flashes and in many high power switching applications. Plasma displays are very popular for their very sharp images and visibility under direct sunlight.

In traveling and slow wave structures, charged plasmas can be used instead of electron beams to increase the device breakdown voltage and to take advantage of self-focusing nature of the plasmas to modify the need for magnetic field focusing that makes them bulky and heavy.

In medicine, plasmas are used for elimination of drug resistant bacteria, skin and tissue treatment, etc. Some have shown that plasma treatment results in faster healing of wounds.

We are inviting all the researchers in the wide area of micro-plasma devices to contribute to this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Massood Tabib-Azar
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• micro-plasma devices
• microfabricated plasma devices
• plasma switches
• plasma sensors
• plasma actuators