THE BMSTU RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL CENTRE
FOR PLASMA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
G. Morfill
Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russia
e-mail:
The BMSTU Research and Educational Centre for Plasma Science and Technology
was officially opened on April 10th 2013. During the preparation stage of the
laboratories already a series of lectures was started in order to prepare the students
for the new opportunities which the Centre will offer. Plasma Science and Technology
— and this may come as a surprise to some – has become a major growth area, mainly
through new discoveries (such as plasma crystals), new frontiers (such as high power
lasers), interdisciplinary applications (such as plasma-biology, plasma-medicine and
plasma-colloid physics) and technological advances (such as mono- and multilayer
surface applications) as well as progress in plasma-chemistry, novel materials and
plasma source design. The Centre for Plasma Science and Technology focuses on
these modern and innovative aspects of plasma research and aims to play a major
role in these fields. Economically, some of these topics have the potential to become
major “disruptive technologies” with the corresponding impact on society. Thus the
Centre – in its current form and the planned additions — will play an important role
in shaping this future. In the following, a brief summary of the activities, now and in
future, will be presented.
Introduction.
Current Status of the Centre.
After more than a year
of intense planning and preparations the
Centre for Plasma Science and
Technology
was officially opened on April 10th 2013. Its role in BMSTU
is to highlight new and emerging fields of plasma science and to educate
students towards understanding the physics, chemistry and technology
aspects which “plasmas” open up in the future. This is achieved in a
trilogy of approaches: teaching, experiments and theory.
Why the focus on plasma? When just over a decade ago many “experts”
were convinced that the only topics still unexplored in this field were
“plasma fusion — mainly a large energy engineering project, possibly of
doubtful value” and “plasma surface treatments — primarily etching and
vapour deposition, all well established in multi-billion industrial settings”.
Basic research aspects seemed to be exhausted. But, as it happens so often
in science, these “experts” were well and truly wrong!
Laser plasmas
(which are able to reach ultra-high energies),
complex
plasmas
(which are able to explore something nobody had believed
possible — plasma crystallization),
plasma chemistry
(which through non-
equilibrium reactions is able to produce new species and materials),
plasma medicine
(which has great potentials in hygiene, cancer therapy,
skin diseases, environment protection and agriculture) — these are some of
the emerging young fields that have revolutionized the way we currently
think of plasma research. They are also the fields through which major
new developments, even whole new industries, may emerge — as a result
of the introduction of new disruptive plasma technologies.
46 ISSN 0236-3941. Вестник МГТУ им. Н.Э. Баумана. Сер. “Машиностроение”. 2013. № 2
