Plasma R&D

Plasma R&D directions:

  • Develop theoretical models and computational tools for simulations of weakly ionized plasmas
  • Apply available software for computational analysis and engineering design of devices and processes using plasma technologies

Current R&D Projects:

  • Development of next generation computational tools with adaptive Cartesian mesh for rarefied, continuum and transitional flows
    • Unified Flow Solver with Adaptive Mesh and Algorithm Refinement (AMAR) for aerospace and micro-flow applications with automatic selection of kinetic Boltzmann and continuum fluid solvers in different parts of computational domain.
    • Viscous flow solvers with AMR capabilities for automatic mesh generation and dynamic mesh adaptation for laminar and turbulent flows (see AIAA-2011-3381)

      NRR concept applied to high speed aircraft
      • a) octree Cartesian mesh to eliminate the costly and labor intensive grid generation process,
      • b) Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) to automatically adapt grids to local flow properties
      • c) Normal Ray Refinement (NRR) to reduce grid size requirements for viscous boundary layers (see AIAA-2011-755).
    • Adaptive kinetic-fluid models for weakly ionized plasmas

      • Streamer development in positive corona discharge: computational grid (left), electrostatic potential (center), and the electron density (right)
  • Simulations of Plasma Devices and Processes

    3D simulations of Panasonic Pantheon E800 Dry Etcher
    • Low-pressure plasma reactors for material processing, semiconductor manufacturing, lighting, etc.
    • Plasma chemical reaction mechanisms:
    • rare gases (lighting, PDP)
    • O2, N2, Cl2, H2
    • Fluorocarbon plasmas (SF6, C2F6, ..)
    • SiH4 for deposition of SiO2
    • Hydrocarbon plasmas (DLC films, CNT, etc)
    • Atmospheric pressure discharges for material processing and biomedical applications
    • Hypersonic reentry plasmas
  • Hybrid model of Radiation Transport in non-equilibrium plasmas

The optical thickness of media often changes drastically with the photon wavelength. We develop a hybrid model of radiation transport combining Photon Monte Carlo (PMC) methods with diffusion models (P1) for efficient simulations of non-equilibrium radiation in hypersonic and gas discharge plasmas (see AIAA-2011-3767).