Plasma interactions as a research area investigates the fundamental processes governing how plasmas interact with fields, particles, and material boundaries in laboratory, space, and astrophysical environments. It encompasses collisional and collisionless regimes, wave–particle and wave–wave interactions, magnetic reconnection, sheath formation at surfaces, and energy and momentum transfer between charged and neutral species. This field integrates kinetic and fluid (MHD, two-fluid, gyrokinetic) descriptions, advanced diagnostics, and numerical simulations to study phenomena such as turbulence, transport, instabilities, and nonlinear structure formation, with implications for fusion devices, space weather, propulsion, and high-energy-density plasma systems.
Using data collected by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it flew past Jupiter's highly volcanic moon Io in late 2023 and again in early 2024, a Southwest Research Institute-led team identified electrons with energies enhanced by ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 11, 2025
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59
To develop a practical fusion power system, scientists need to fully understand how the plasma fuel interacts with its surroundings. The plasma is superheated, which means some of the atoms involved can strike the wall of ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 26, 2025
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109
Gas sensing technologies play a vital role in our modern world, from ensuring our safety in homes and workplaces to monitoring environmental pollution and industrial processes. Traditional gas sensors, while effective, often ...
Nanomaterials
Feb 25, 2025
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30
Plasma arc cutting (PAC) is a thermal cutting technique widely used in manufacturing applications such as shipbuilding, aerospace, fabrication, nuclear plants decommissioning, construction industry, and the automotive industry. ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 20, 2025
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45
A graduate research assistant at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama system, has published a paper in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics that builds on an earlier study to ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 4, 2025
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145
Predicting the lifetime of an electric ion thruster is notoriously difficult. You have to account for the chamber wall effects, which are not present in space environments. Researchers within several different aerospace disciplines ...
General Physics
Jan 20, 2025
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50
Results from a 2021 experiment led by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist have begun to reveal the particle-level processes that create the type of auroras that dance rapidly across the sky.
Plasma Physics
Dec 20, 2024
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59
Scientists have used a pair of lasers and a supersonic sheet of gas to accelerate electrons to high energies in less than a foot. The development marks a major step forward in laser-plasma acceleration, a promising method ...
Plasma Physics
Dec 11, 2024
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68
Fusion researchers are increasingly turning to the element tungsten when looking for an ideal material for components that will directly face the plasma inside fusion reactors known as tokamaks and stellarators. But under ...
Plasma Physics
Oct 7, 2024
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104
Optical materials are essential in many modern applications, but controlling the way a material reflects light on its surface is costly and difficult. Now, in a recent study, researchers from Japan found a simple and low-cost ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 22, 2024
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