Physics Colloquium, October 26, 2004

An Overview of Plasma – Materials Interactions in Magnetic Fusion and Thin Film Processing for Microelectronics and Display Applications

Robert T. McGrath

OSU, Senior Vice President for Research

The physics of plasma confinement for magnetic fusion energy production simply requires that one assemble and maintain burning hot hydrogen at a temperature of one-hundred-million degrees centigrade (10 keV). The question of “in what container might one confine this man-made star?” has lead to construction of complicated magnetic bottles such as the tokamak. Unfortunately, to date, none of these magnetic bottles have provided perfect confinement. The result being that hot plasma leaks across the magnetic flux surfaces and ultimately collides with vacuum vessel interior surfaces of the tokamak, sometimes with catastrophic results. This talk will explore how these tokamak boundary layer interactions have profound effect on radiation losses, impurity atom transport, interior surface lifetimes and essential core plasma parameters such as temperature. If time permits, application of lessons learned from these high temperature plasmas to cold plasma (2-5 eV) systems for thin film etching or micro-pixels for plasma displays may also be addressed.

3.30 p.m., Smith Laboratory, Room 1005

Refreshments served in Smith 1094 at 3:00 p.m.