https://www.lpgp.universite-paris-saclay.fr/en/front-page?set_language=en
The ‘Laboratoire de Physique des Gaz et des Plasmas’ of Orsay, founded in the 1960s, is a Joint Research Unit (UMR 8578) attached to CNRS – INSIS/ (Institute of Engineering Sciences & Systems) belonging to the CNRS (National Council for Scientific Research) and Université Paris-Saclay, France. It carries out fundamental, experimental, and theoretical research.
As a generalist laboratory, LPGP’s activities focus on hot and cold plasmas. The leading topics in hot plasma focus on ultra-high intensity laser-plasma interaction and laser-plasma acceleration, while the studies in low-temperature plasmas concern out-of-equilibrium situations. The interest of the latter lies in the fact that the various species present (electrons, ions, atoms, or neutral molecules) have very different energies, enabling interesting combined features of the gaseous medium such as ionization, high reactivity of the species formed, and low temperature of the heavy particles, among many others. Plasma is a gaseous medium that is at least partly ionized. Hence, the charged particles (electrons and ions) and their interaction with the electromagnetic fields and boundaries impose a special and sometimes unique behavior. Most of the universe comprises matter in
the plasma state (stars, sun, interstellar dust, magnetosphere, lightning, etc.). To study it, plasma was reproduced in the laboratory, and over the years, it has known a growing interest covering today a wide range of applications, as an alternative source of energy such as thermonuclear fusion, to new technologies (bio-medicine, microelectronics, materials deposition and processing, plasma propulsion, gas treatment, pollution control, etc.).
The main application fields cover:
- Bio-medical plasma treatment – cancer therapy
- Environment: destruction of atmospheric pollutants or bacteriological agents, surface
sterilization and decontamination, combustion control - Ultra-high-intensity lasers and their interaction with plasmas: radiation sources, GeV electron acceleration, ion acceleration, etc.
- Energy from fusion controlled by magnetic confinement: technology for ITER
- Materials: ultra-thin film synthesis, metal and polymer deposition and processing, powder synthesis and micro- and nano-structured materials, surface cleaning, etc.
- Transportation: combustion control, plasma propulsion.
- Reducing energy consumption: high-efficiency light sources, photo-tribology.
- Aerosol process control: charge and size quantification, selectivity, metrology, core-shell nanoparticles;
- Energy sources for Additive Manufacturing: electron beams, lasers, beam shaping and characterization, etc