Plasma Science Enabling Technology, Sustainability, Security, and Exploration (2021) / Chapter Skim
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1 Plasma Science: Enabling Technology, Sustainability, Security, and Exploration
1 Plasma Science: Enabling Technology, Sustainability, Security, and Exploration
Pages 12-53
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From page 12... ...
• Stockpile stewardship, hypersonic flight, space weather, indeed our very national security, relies on our understanding and mastering the complexi ties of plasmas. • From magnetic fields generated throughout the universe to the earthly creation of states of matter that otherwise exist only in the center of stars, to exploring whether life can exist on exoplanets -- all are enabled by plasma science.
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From page 13... ...
Plasmas are increasingly being used to benefit human health and well-being, from plasma-based medical devices for wound healing and cancer treatment to the use of plasmas to enhance the growth rate and yield of agriculturally important crops. Plasmas are a source of electromagnetic radiation and, when combined with intense lasers, could act as compact particle accelerators for medical and security imaging, and exploration of the frontiers of high-energy physics.
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From page 14... ...
The potential of fundamental research in PSE to translate to societal benefit is captured in the vision of a future based on renewable electricity where societies are powered by nonpolluting, renewable, and sustainable electricity.1 The source of that electricity will be largely plasma-enabled, from plasma fusion reactors to solar cells that are produced by plasma materials processing. That electricity will be stored in batteries made with plasma-synthesized materials.
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From page 15... ...
stockpile stewardship is singularly dependent on high-energy-density plasmas. This decadal study, Plasma 2020, reviews the scientific advances and societal benefits brought by PSE over the past decade; and discusses the scientific challenges that must be addressed to continue and expand upon those societal benefits.
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From page 16... ...
, launched in 2015, has enabled just such measurements. Plasma 2010 cited opportunities to use HED to study astrophysical plasmas.
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From page 17... ...
High-Energy Density Plasmas and Inertial Confinement Fusion High-energy density (HED) plasma physics is the study of matter whose energy content exceeds any natural phenomenon on Earth.
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From page 18... ...
HED physics is a field with broad, cross-cutting applications in plasma physics. Understanding the dynamics of HED plasmas ad dresses many fundamental questions relevant to the broader plasma communities, including space science, material science and quantum materials, nuclear physics, atomic physics, and the generation and transport of hard radiation.
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From page 19... ...
Significant new understanding of the plasma physics required for ignition and data essential to our national security have been gained on NIF even without ignition. While the existing major facilities are expected to continue to produce scientific advances for at least the next decade, planning for the next generation of ICF and HED facilities, both laser- and pulsed-power-driven, is beginning.
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From page 20... ...
The major facilities (the Omega/Omega EP laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester; the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Labo ratory; the Linac Coherent Light Source at the SLAC National Accelerator Facility; and the Z-Machine at Sandia National Laboratory) are producing a wealth of exciting new data.
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From page 21... ...
, the seed electrons were released by photoionization of neutral atoms inside the plasma. This technique is called the Trojan Horse.
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From page 22... ...
reach regimes inaccessible to Earthbound laboratory experiments, enabling deep insights into fundamental plasma processes. Some of these fundamental phenomena can be sampled directly by spacecraft, while others can only be stud ied by spectroscopy, imaging, polarimetry, and other remote sensing techniques.
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From page 23... ...
We can only expect that continuing and expanding our intellectual reach in SAPs will continue to bring new generations of researchers into science and plasma science in particular. SAP studies rely heavily on other areas of plasma science, from laboratory experiments on magnetic reconnection and dynamos to atomic and nuclear calculations of opacities, involving HED physics, basic plasma science, particle acceleration physics, computational plasma physics, and radiative hydrodynamics.
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From page 24... ...
In the laboratory, strong magnetic fields are used in lieu of gravity to confine hot plasmas to produce fusion -- magnetic confinement fusion energy (MFE) , as demonstrated in Figure 1.5.
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From page 25... ...
participation in ITER, and made the case that knowledge gained from the burning plasma experiments to be conducted on ITER will be essential in realizing commercial fusion power in the United States. The study also recognized that while the ITER design is a low-risk route to a burning plasma, it is also a highcost route to commercial fusion power.
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From page 26... ...
LTPs have had a transformative impact on society, from water purification to plasma-enabled fabrication of microelectronics. Emerging applications address grand societal challenges including combating anti-microbial resistance and cancer; enhancing food safety; nitrogen fixation; and creating new sustainable chemical conversion and energy storage technologies.
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From page 27... ...
Examples include controlling plasma-surface interactions at the atomic level to enable the next generation of materials for quantum computing, combating anti-microbial resistance, improving nitrogen fixation and food safety, creating new energy storage technologies, and developing plasma-based propulsion capable of taking humankind to Mars and beyond. Computational Plasma Science and Engineering Computations are one of the four main methods of scientific investigation -- the others being theoretical, experimental, and observational.
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From page 28... ...
Addressing these challenges is part of the continuum of translational research that begins with fundamental scientific understanding and culminates in societal benefit. In most fields of PSE, it is not possible to investigate plasma science challenges in isolation
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From page 29... ...
• Understanding the behavior of plasmas under extreme conditions will enable energy conversion by plasmas to be predicted and efficiently controlled, to address the challenges of sustainability, economic competitiveness, and national security, and expand our knowledge of the most fundamental processes in the universe. When astrophysical objects undergo disruptive events, such as the vio lent ejection of material from the Sun that influence space weather or the formation of relativistic jets of material from the black holes at the centers of galaxies, it is the abrupt reconnection of magnetic fields that produces massive plasma outflows and energetic particles.
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From page 30... ...
They will extend the reach of high-energy particle physics, and improve our understanding of the fundamental forces that shape the universe. • Accelerating the development of fusion generated electricity, tapping the virtu ally unlimited fuel in sea-water, to bring the benefits of carbon-neutral power to society, through economical, deployable, and sustainable fusion systems enabled by advances in experimental and computational plasma physics.
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From page 31... ...
• Demonstrating that lasers and pulsed-power devices can produce inertially confined fusion ignition by creating plasma-based extreme states of matter to support stockpile stewardship, further the goal of sustainable energy, and expand our understanding of high-energy-density physics. The compression of matter by lasers and pulsed power will produce inertial confinement fusion (ICF)
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From page 32... ...
sub committee of the National Science and Technology Council is leading a community-wide conversation on benchmarking of extreme space weather events based on studies, data acquisition, and research. Global efforts to develop metrics for model validation are underway under the aegis of the COSPAR (Committee on Space Research)
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From page 33... ...
At the same time, PSE is exceedingly dependent on allied disciplines for the fundamental data utilized in analyzing experiments and needed for model development. As PSE focuses on translational research that involves plasma surface interactions, there are critical data needs for how plasma produced activation energy (electrons and ions, chemically active species, UV/VUV radiation)
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From page 34... ...
Therefore, the ma jority of U.S. physics students and potential plasma physics graduate students are likely not exposed to plasma physics as undergraduates.
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From page 35... ...
Although the committee is not formally endorsing a particular organization's DEI activities, the committee strongly endorses the importance of and efforts of the field to diversify. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The PSE community in the United States has had an enormous impact since publication of the Plasma 2010 report.4 Internationally leading research has been performed in all fields of PSE, with landmark contributions having been made 4 National Research Council, 2007, Plasma Science: Advancing Knowledge in the National Interest, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, https://doi.org/10.17226/11960.
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From page 36... ...
At the same time, examples of initiative-driven and long-term collaborations between federal agencies in PSE are rare. The recently enacted Space Weather Research and Forecasting Act that mandates joint activities by NASA, NOAA, NSF, DoD, and FAA, and the NSF/DOE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering, are notable exceptions.
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From page 37... ...
Finding: Institutional barriers between subdisciplines of PSE make mutually advantageous interactions difficult, yet interactions between subdisciplines have led to important advances that would have been difficult to produce otherwise. Finding: A more unified voice for the field would create opportunities for interdisciplinary and translational research, and initiate activities that exploit synergies among different subdisciplines of PSE.
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From page 38... ...
Notable exceptions include the recurring NSF/DOE Partner ship in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering, an outcome of the 1995 Plasma Decadal Study, and the recently announced NSF/NASA Next Generation Software for Data-driven Models of Space Weather with Quantified Uncertainties. Another successful example is the 2007 Interagency Task Force on High Energy Density Physics, with membership from the DOE Office of Science (SC)
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From page 39... ...
Recommendation: Federal agencies and programs within federal agencies that are separately focused on fundamental plasma research, and those that are focused on science and technologies that utilize plasmas, should jointly coordinate and support initiatives with new funding opportunities. There are extraordinary opportunities for such jointly sponsored initiatives in, for example, materials, biotechnology, medicine, agriculture, accelerators, energy, environment, propulsion, manufacturing, space weather, security, and computations.
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From page 40... ...
Recommendation: More strategically, NSF should establish a plasma-focused program in the Engineering Directorate that would further engineering pri orities across the board, including advanced agricultural systems, energy and environment, chemical transformation, advanced manufacturing, elec tronics, and quantum systems. These efforts would complement the more fundamental plasma physics pro gram in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.
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From page 41... ...
Programs that support vital industries depending on plasma science and engineering should be developed through relevant interagency collaborations. Examples of translational research that would benefit plasma enabled industries include development of diagnostics that could be used for real-time control of plasma processes, understanding and optimizing the production of plasma generation of precursors used in materials processing and developing industrially relevant modeling platforms.
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From page 42... ...
Since plasma physics is a minority discipline in nearly every department con taining plasma-focused faculty, maintaining faculty expertise is becoming pro gressively more challenging. Universities provide thought leadership and drive innovation, while also training the workforce for the field, and that leadership and training requires a robust faculty in PSE.
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From page 43... ...
The past DOE National Undergraduate Fellowship program in plasma physics, now a Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics outreach events for students, are two successful examples.
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From page 44... ...
To implement this recommendation, federal agencies supporting PSE research could be allowed to establish domain-specific educational and outreach programs, reversing recent changes that were intended to reduce duplication in educational programs across the federal enterprise. New opportunities for undergraduate re search in PSE at smaller PUIs would increase exposure of diverse populations to plasma physics and engineering, thus increasing both the population and the di versity of the pipeline into graduate school and the profession.
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From page 45... ...
Finding: Given these strong international investments, incremental progress in facilities in the United States is insufficient to maintain leadership. Finding: A spectrum of facility scales is required by the subfields of PSE to address their science challenges and translational research.
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From page 46... ...
Finding: Computational plasma science and engineering (CPSE) has be come essential across PSE for experiment and mission design and diagnosis, idea exploration, probing of fundamental plasma physics processes, and prediction.
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From page 47... ...
This broadened mission, contained primarily within the Discovery Plasma Science (DPS) program of FES, has increased its support of research on LTPs, basic plasma physics, and high-energy-density plasmas.
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From page 48... ...
Mission-driven agencies whose facilities focus applications partnering with or accommodating basic plasma experiments would speed translational research. DOD-AFOSR, DOD-ONR, Multiagency plasma science centers Multiagency plasma science centers would provide an ideal environment for DOE-FES, DOE-HEP, interdisciplinary advances in fundamental concepts, while enabling rapid DOE-NNSA, NASA, NSF-ENG, translation to technologies required by mission-focused agencies.
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From page 49... ...
DOD-AFOSR, DOD-AFRL, Basic plasma physics for electric There is little coordination of electric propulsion (EP) programs across agencies.
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From page 50... ...
enhanced biomaterials Plasma materials processing has great potential for improving biocompatibility and antimicrobial properties of conventional wound dressings.
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From page 51... ...
Plasmas can also play a role in decarbonizing chemical industry process heating. DOD-AFOSR, DOD-ARO, Plasma-based materials processing Plasma materials processing is at the root of nearly all advanced materials, from DOD-DARPA, DOD-ONR, and additive manufacturing microelectronics fabrication, advanced energy storage materials, lightweight DOE-DOE-ARPA-E, DOE-BES, composites, and photonics, to super-plastic and super-hard and energetic DOE-FES, FAA, NASA, materials for security applications.
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From page 52... ...
.) Topic Strategic Importance DOD-AFOSR, DOD-DARPA, Ion accelerators, neutron sources, New ion and neutron sources, together with plasma optics, are under DOD-DTRA, DOD-ONR, DHS, and plasma optics development that could leverage high intensity lasers to generate new sources DOE-ARDP, DOE-BES, DOE-FES, with applications including medical therapy, high energy density science, and DOE-HEP, DOE-NNSA, security.
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From page 53... ...
, and high power microwave sources. DOD-ONR, DOE-NNSA, NASA, Validation of HED, ICF and Advances in HED computations for investigating fundamental astrophysical NSF-MPS astrophysical computations plasma physics and ICF must be accompanied by coordinated inter-agency experiments for validation.
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