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Research focus areas
Studying the physical-chemistry of non-equilibrium plasmas
Collision processes, whether elastic or inelastic, involving charged or neutral species, control the energy distributions of particles (electrons, ions, ro-vibrational states, etc.), which can deviate significantly from a Maxwellian-Boltzmann distribution. Energy transport mechanisms in systems with strong spatio-temporal gradients are also crucial for describing these environments. Moreover, the study of these plasmas cannot be separated from the interaction with the surfaces they are in contact with. All these aspects often suffer from a lack of fundamental theoretical and/or experimental data necessary for establishing predictive models. To address these challenges, the team structures its activities around five main areas.
The first area, axis (i) - Reference Sources for determining fundamental data, aims to design simple reactors to isolate the effect of certain individual collision processes, providing rigorous constraints on cross-section values or reaction rates for these processes. This area also includes spectroscopy experiments dedicated to determining atomic quantities. The second area, axis (ii) -Spatial and temporal limits in plasmas, focuses on complex plasma sources at the limits of the spatio-temporal scales studied to date in cold plasmas (nanosecond and nanometer scales). These two areas rely on the development of advanced optical diagnostics in the third area, axis (iii) - Advanced optical diagnostics. The fourth area, axis (iv) - Theory, simulation and numerical experiments, focuses on theoretical tools and numerical simulations closely linked to experimental measurements, either by developing quantitative comparisons or even enabling the interpretation of experimental signals through the numerical reproduction of the experiment. The work carried out in areas (i) to (iv) provides a deep understanding of the systems studied, which ultimately forms the foundation for the development of innovative applicative systems at the heart of technology transfers, constituting the team’s fifth area of research axis (v) - Towards technology transfer.. Finally, the team’s extensive experimental facilities benefit from the expertise of the technical support group, which not only handles the setup and maintenance of experiments but also actively contributes to new developments.
(Physics of atomic and molecular physics, spectroscopy, collisional processes, transport, etc.)
JP Booth, C. Drag, C. Blondel, O. Guaitella, S. Starikovsakia
(Nanosecond discharges, nanoscience, plasma-catalysis, plasma-liquid interactions, etc.)
S. Starikovsakia, D. Pai, T. Dufour, A. Rousseau, O. Guaitella, A. Bourdon
(Doppler-resolved TALIF, CRDS, E-FISH, Mueller polarimetry, in-situ Raman spectroscopy, etc.)
C. Drag, C. Blondel, D. Pai, JP Booth, S. Starikovskaia, O. Guaitella
(Complex models, simulations, and experiments in plasma research)
A. Bourdon, C. Drag, JP Booth, O. Guaitella
(Complex reactors with application-oriented purposes, biomedical applications, methanation, space thrusters, etc. )
A. Rousseau,
T. Dufour,
O. Guaitella,
P. Chabert,
A. Bourdon,
A. Alvarez-Laguna,
C. Drag
(Mechanical design and engineering, machining, electronics, metrology, experiment design, automation, data management, etc.)
P. Pariset, B. Dufour (80%), G. Curley, N. Ba
