High-Pressure Plasmas

The main research areas of High-Pressure Plasmas Group are low-temperature plasma science, including plasma processes in electric power equipment, computational physics, kinetic theory of gases, and nonlinear dissipative structures, and principal tools are theoretical methods and numerical simulation. Funding for the group in 2016-2019 was provided by the project PlasMa (European Regional Development Fund), a number of application-oriented research projects funded by industry (Siemens, Germany; Schneider Electric, France), and IPFN. The main research topics in 2016-2019 have been plasma-electrode interaction in high-pressure arc discharges, cathode spots in vacuum arcs and related phenomena, such as unipolar arcs in fusion devices and breakdown in particle accelerators, and modelling of self-organization on cold electrodes of DC discharges and related phenomena.

Group Leader: Mikhail Benilov

Left: COST-529 standard lamp (Philips). Right: DBD for biomedical applications

Spots and patterns on cathodes of glow and arc discharges: comparing the theory and the experiment

Objectives

To develop self-consistent theory and modeling methods of arc discharges including electrodes. This is a topic of high scientific interest and highly important for applications of arc discharges
To develop a theory and modeling methods for self-organization in near-electrode regions of gas discharges with cold electrodes. Self-organized patterns have been observed in virtually all types of discharges: DC glows, RF, coronas, DBD, magnetron discharges and are of very high scientific interest and potential importance for applications

Contacts

Mikhail Benilov, Group Leader:

benilov at staff.uma.pt