Projects

Ongoing projects

Project Title - Physics and application of Plasma-surface interaction: Tuning effect of pulsed microwave electric field and electrostatic magnetic field

Project Cost - Rs. 35 Lakh

Granting agency - DST, India

Project Title - Microwave plasma interaction with conducting surfaces and its effect on plasma parameters

Project Cost - Rs. 10 Lakh

Granting agency - Institute Seed Grant, SVNIT, India

Project Title - Role of rotating magnetic field in the microwave-induced plasma source for clean energy: directed motion and controlled energy distribution of charged particles.

Project Cost - Rs. 25 Lakh

Granting agency - CSIR, India

What is Plasma ?

Plasma is termed as the “fourth” state of matter – a partially ionized gas consisting of ions, electrons, atoms, molecules, metastables, radicals and photons. However, the exact plasma composition and the ratios between different components depends factors like plasma source, operating pressure, and the background gas species. For example, ultraviolet and vacuum ultraviolet photons have found to mostly in noble gases and hydrogen plasmas while other gas plasmas contains mostly reactive species. In laboratories, plasmas can be generated either by electricity, radiofrequency/microwave radiation or heat. At low pressure, plasmas can be generated over a large volume while consuming low amount of gas species but requires expensive vacuum equipment and, the samples should also be vacuum stable. This is easily overcome by using non-thermal atmospheric-pressure plasmas where electron temperature is much higher than the heavy particles (ions, neutrals that are mostly at room temperatures).

Plasma-Surface interaction

Atmospheric pressure plasma pose a chamber-free route to surface treatment, be it inanimate object or living tissues, with little damage from energetic electrons or ions. The potential applications of the plasma are determined by the plasma properties (like gas temperature) and plasma excitation. While radiofrequency plasma is limited to low temperature applications, microwave plasmas can be employed for high temperature applications as well. The microwave plasmas are found to have the widest range of applications (both low and high temperatures), although their role in the surface coating has not been explored much.

The interaction between plasma and target surface is complex phenomenon and is determined by several factors including gas flow rate, applied electric field and voltage applied. Owing to the wider application range of microwaves, pulsed microwave can be employed to explore this study. The control over pulse parameters will give flexibility in obtaining desired plasma composition for specific purposes. It has found that at lower pulse width interpulse plasma state is observed while at higher pulse width afterglow plasma is realized. Therefore the effect of pulse width will be an interesting to look for. The inclusion of a variable magnetic field will further open up new dimension in this direction.

Microwave Plasma

Microwave plasma is one of the most important plasma sources in the industry because of its high plasma density and low damage to the processing surface. Microwave plasma are sustained when electrons can gain enough energy from an electromagnetic wave as it penetrates into the plasma. The interest in microwave plasma lies in the fact that:

It can be generated over a wide range of pressure ranging from 0.01 Pa to the atmosphere and over a wide range of volume.
At microwave frequencies, the phenomena of electrodynamics, plasma kinetics and plasma chemistry in non-equilibrium conditions get activated and can be explored.
It gives flexibility of controlling the plasma composition by changing the electrodynamics of the microwave-to-plasma applicator.
No contamination issues and negligible electrical interference.
Numerous designs are possible depending on the requirement.

3D Geometry of Surfaguide for generation of microwave plasma

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