IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a nonintrusive technique that needs no sample preparation and even recently, quantitative measurements were done without the need for calibration standards. Much research has been done on the laser induced air plasma to study the spatial variation of plasma parameters in the axial direction of the laser beam. In this paper, we report investigation on ... View full abstract»

A self-guided laser propagating in a plasma channel in the direction of static magnetic field is unstable to a plasma wave perturbation comoving with the laser with its group velocity. The plasma wave amplitude has a radial profile with a maximum on the axis. As the plasma wave propagates, it causes focusing of the part of the laser that propagates with the electron density trough and defocusing o... View full abstract»

Fusion performance of a plasma-focus is negatively affected by the presence of impurities that originated from the countereffect of the current sheath and the electrodes, which lower the plasma temperature and dilute the reacting deuterons. The experimental results of the Filippov-type plasma-focus Dena (90 kJ, 25 kV, and 288 muF) demonstrate the profound influence of anode insert materials on the... View full abstract»

A model for the interaction of a short laser with matter is presented. The model is based on the solution of wave-propagation equations in a medium with complex dielectric constant. The model is coupled with multigroup radiation hydrodynamics to take into account the space and time evolution of plasma parameters. The complete code is used to analyze various experiments with laser pulse duration va... View full abstract»

The effect of the three-electrode voltage distribution on the microdischarge characteristics of an ac-PDP with a long discharge path (400 mum) is investigated. It is found that the auxiliary pulse applied to the address electrode, which participates in the trigger discharge, plays a key role in lowering the sustain voltage in the long discharge path by both providing the priming particles to gener... View full abstract»

The concept of fast high-temperature surface processing (FHTSP) different materials by using compressed homogeneous dense plasma, produced by superadiabatic gas compression in a ballistic plasmatron (BP), is developed. The theory of the superadiabatic compression BP was developed and the experimental installation was created. It is shown that dense plasma can be generated with unique parameters: t... View full abstract»

A study of the evolution of microplasmas produced on aluminum alloy surface at ambient air pressure by 266-nm 10-ns laser pulses with energies of 3 to 100 muJ (2 to 68 GW/cm2) is carried out. Gated photography with a minimum width of 5 ns is used to investigate the plasma evolution. Plasma emission and plasma distances from the sample surface are investigated as a function of time. Puls... View full abstract»

Carbon powder synthesized by an atmospheric microwave-plasma torch is characterized in terms of the mixture ratio of argon to nitrogen in torch gas. Methane as a source of carbon atoms was directly injected into the microwave-plasma torch. The samples deposited on the inner wall of a discharge tube were analyzed by the X-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscope, field-emission ... View full abstract»

The effect of microwave discharge on pyrogen bioactivity has been studied in different oxygen- and hydrogen-containing mixtures with the aim of identifying the crucial depyrogenation agent. According to the obtained biological results and their comparison with properties of the plasma determined by means of optical emission spectroscopy and Langmuir probe measurements, it has been found that under... View full abstract»

The growth process of nanoparticles and nanowires of AlN by thermal-plasma-assisted gas phase condensation reaction has been investigated by optical emission spectroscopy. The concentrations of the reacting precursors in the plasma have been correlated to the crystalline phases of nanoparticles of AlN found from X-ray diffraction analysis. The size and morphology of the nanoparticles have been stu... View full abstract»

A pilot-scale experiment for killing red tide organisms in a sea enclosure was done in Bohai Sea off Dalian City, China, in August 2003. With the physical method of micro-gap gas discharge, an OHmiddot solution of 24.3 mg/L was produced by the ionization of O2 in air and H2O at gas state and then dissolved into one part of seawater. When the OHmiddot concentration was 0.68 mg... View full abstract»

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) was applied to the degradation of an organic contaminant in wastewater. When electrical discharge occurs, the DBD reactor produces oxidative species (ozone) and emits ultraviolet light. For the purpose of using both ozone and ultraviolet light for the degradation of the organic contaminant, the DBD reactor was immersed in the wastewater. The DBD reactor for this ... View full abstract»

The effect of pulsed electric fields (PEFs) applied on the enzymes horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and pectinesterase (PE), which widely exist in vegetable and fruit juices, was investigated using chambers with paralleled plane electrode and coaxial cylinder electrode, respectively. The experimental results show that the relative activity of HRP and PE decreased after PEF treatment. Inactivation effe... View full abstract»

Experiments are performed using 193-nm ultraviolet laser preionization of a seed gas in atmospheric pressure range argon and nitrogen to initiate a discharge that is sustained by 13.56-MHz radiofrequency (RF) power using efficient inductive wave coupling. High-density (4.5times1012/cm3 line average density) large-volume (~500 cm3) 760-torr argon plasma is initiated... View full abstract»

Power flow in a recyclable transmission line (RTL) for a z-pinch-driven inertial-confinement fusion energy (IFE) system is studied. In a magnetically insulated transmission line, plasma forms by explosive emission on the cathode but emission from the anode does not occur. However, in an RTL, the large linear current density that flows in the electrodes at small radius near the load resistively hea... View full abstract»

A time dependent two-dimensional numerical simulation has been carried out in order to clarify the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow behavior and performance of a disk MHD generator installed in a new closed-loop experimental facility at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The numerical investigation is not limited to the generator channel only, but also includes an inlet duct and a downstream 90deg-b... View full abstract»