249 – Plasma Physics

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Guests: Walter Gekelman, Troy Carter    Host: Markus Voelter    Shownoter: Andy Joiner

During my trip to the US I also visited the Basic Plasma Science Facility at the UCLA in Los Angeles. I talked with the two professors who run the facility, Walter Gekelman and Troy Carter. We discuss the basics of plasma, the research questions of plasma physics and some of the experimental challenges. I also get (and report on) a tour through the facility, which was very impressive, mainly because the whole system was built by the team around Walter and Troy!

Theory with Walter and Troy

00:01:48

Walter Gekelman | UCLA | Plasma | Troy Carter | Fusion | Tokamak | D3D Tokamak | Astrophysical plasma | Space plasma | Ionization | "A soup of electrons, a soup of charged positive ions" | "There may or may not be neutral particles" | "The hotter the plasma is, the fewer neutral particles there will be" | Collective behaviors | Debye Shielding | Non-linear behavior compared with gas | Memory | Collective response | Waves communicate disturbance | Plasma in manufacturing | Plasma processing | Plasma etching | Plasma implantation | Wafer | Lasers can produce plasma when they hit a solid | Plasma can be as dense as water | Statistical physics | Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics | Numerical analysis | Particle-in-cell | Non-neutral plasmas | Pure ion/pure electron plasma | TFTR 510,000,000°C | Nonthermal plasma | Plasma oscillation | Plasma magnetization | Plasma potential | Coulomb barrier | Solar wind

More theory with Walter

00:38:01

Lightning | Sprite | Magnetic ropes | Plasma is a better electrical conductor than copper | Resistance | Collisionless | Superconductor | Ionosphere | Heliosphere | Plasma cloud | Debye length | Artificial plasmas | Plasma display | Phosphor | Ground state | Ion laser | Sterilization | Plasma scalpel | Plasma cutter

Tour of the Facility

00:57:55

Large Plasma Device (LaPD) | CNC machine | Turbomolecular pump | Airlock | Scripted | Cathode | Busbar | Substation | Heat exchanger | Supercapacitor | Quasi-separatrix layers | Ohm's law | LAPTAG | Residual gas analyzer | Waveguide | Faraday cage | ITER | Electron beam | Ion beam | Alfvén wave