About this Research Topic
Low-temperature plasmas (LTP) follow macroscopic magnetohydrodynamics and contain complex plasma chemistry to ensure their diverse engineering applications. Due to the low bulk temperature, LTP can thus directly contact its target with physical treatments such as ion bombardments for the plasma etching and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), and chemical treatments such as reactive species and photon reactions for the plasma medicine including cancer therapy and tissue regeneration. Therefore, both the physical and chemical treatments require not only an accurate generation but also automatic control of energetic electrons, ions, and other chemical species. Such optimizations include maximizing the concentration of the wanted active ingredient, minimizing the side products, maximizing the power efficiency, and other goals such as the contact angle of charge bombardments. Unfortunately, LTP chemical pathways are complex, containing numerous chemical reactions while all the different collisions have their unique rate coefficients but occur simultaneously.
The goal of this research topic is to investigate the dynamic LTP chemical pathway networks, rate coefficients of collisions, and finally find the automatic optimizations for the LTP chemistry using but not limited to modern machine learning (ML) technologies.
At the current stage, plasma etching optimization mainly focuses on the geometry of nanostructures, such as the directional ion impacts for a high aspect ratio well, and the power efficiency. PECVD optimizations are always focused on the species impact, species removal, and deposition on the target surfaces. However, only limited research works on the etching and PECVD published to discuss the chemical pathway in the LTP that is upstream of the particle impacts. Plasma-based cancer therapy, relying on the reactive species, has shown the selectivity of treatment that leads to more cancer cell apoptosis than normal cell damage. However, this is not always ensured. For example, the skin cancer cell line B16F10 has a stronger resistance to the LTP rather than its neighboring skin tissues. Other available problems include the coupling of LTP at low ionization degrees with the macroscopic air flow for the air purification optimizations and the LTP chemistry for microorganisms such as the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 deactivations on solid surfaces.
This is a fundamental plasma physics topic but also an interdisciplinary one with control theories. Actual applications of LTP are also included in this topic. Different engineering scenarios contain different chemical pathway networks and different optimization goals, but the fundamental physics behind them are the same, which is the main topic to focus on.
The available specific themes include 1) fundamental plasma chemistry such as the theory of optimizing chemical pathway networks, new plasma chemistry diagnostics technologies, and the cross-sections of unknown collisions; 2) the LTP chemistry of plasma etching and PECVD optimizations; 3) the optimization of LTP-catalyzed NOx and CO2 conversions; 4) the chemical optimization of LTP-based cancer therapy, wound treatment, sterilizations, agricultures, air and water purifications; 5) other optimizations and analysis of LTP chemical applications.
The acceptable article types include 1) Original Research; 2) General Commentary; 3) Review and Mini Review; 4) Brief Research Report; 5) Perspective.
The goal of this research topic is to investigate the dynamic LTP chemical pathway networks, rate coefficients of collisions, and finally find the automatic optimizations for the LTP chemistry using but not limited to modern machine learning (ML) technologies.
At the current stage, plasma etching optimization mainly focuses on the geometry of nanostructures, such as the directional ion impacts for a high aspect ratio well, and the power efficiency. PECVD optimizations are always focused on the species impact, species removal, and deposition on the target surfaces. However, only limited research works on the etching and PECVD published to discuss the chemical pathway in the LTP that is upstream of the particle impacts. Plasma-based cancer therapy, relying on the reactive species, has shown the selectivity of treatment that leads to more cancer cell apoptosis than normal cell damage. However, this is not always ensured. For example, the skin cancer cell line B16F10 has a stronger resistance to the LTP rather than its neighboring skin tissues. Other available problems include the coupling of LTP at low ionization degrees with the macroscopic air flow for the air purification optimizations and the LTP chemistry for microorganisms such as the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 deactivations on solid surfaces.
This is a fundamental plasma physics topic but also an interdisciplinary one with control theories. Actual applications of LTP are also included in this topic. Different engineering scenarios contain different chemical pathway networks and different optimization goals, but the fundamental physics behind them are the same, which is the main topic to focus on.
The available specific themes include 1) fundamental plasma chemistry such as the theory of optimizing chemical pathway networks, new plasma chemistry diagnostics technologies, and the cross-sections of unknown collisions; 2) the LTP chemistry of plasma etching and PECVD optimizations; 3) the optimization of LTP-catalyzed NOx and CO2 conversions; 4) the chemical optimization of LTP-based cancer therapy, wound treatment, sterilizations, agricultures, air and water purifications; 5) other optimizations and analysis of LTP chemical applications.
The acceptable article types include 1) Original Research; 2) General Commentary; 3) Review and Mini Review; 4) Brief Research Report; 5) Perspective.
Keywords: low-temperature plasma, plasma chemistry, plasma medicine, plasma etching, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, NOx conversion, CO2 conversion, reactive oxygen species, reactive nitrogen species
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