LOW TEMPERATURE PLASMA SCIENCE CENTERS AND FACILITIES

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The DOE SC program in Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) hereby announces its interest in receiving cooperative agreement proposals for centers and designated user facilities in low temperature plasma science and engineering. Centers, that are cohesive and synergistic, should be formed by a closely-interacting group of investigators. Designated user facilities should be similar to the ones outlined in Chapter 5 of the 2016 Frontiers of Plasma Science Workshops report and may be hosted by a group of institutions or a single institution. Both centers and user facilities should be able to address one or more topical areas at the frontier of low temperature plasma science and engineering. Specific research areas of interest include: • interfacial plasma (i.e., low temperature plasma coming into contact with liquid to produce new chemical reactivity through a gas-liquid interface); • interaction of plasma with biomaterials (e.g., understanding how plasma-produced chemical reactivity is delivered through multiple interfaces, such as liquid, cells, tissue, polymers); • control of plasma-electromagnetic interaction (e.g., fundamental understanding of how radio-frequency electromagnetic power produces controllable plasmas to enable microelectronics processing); • Plasma catalysis (e.g., understanding the plasma reactivity and catalyst selectivity); • Plasma aided combustion (e.g., control of pulsed plasmas to improve the efficiency of chemical processing); • Interface between plasma and solid-state physics (e.g., understanding the boundary layer between plasma and solid-state surface); • Coherent structures (e.g., understanding electric self-organization in low temperature plasmas); • Other emerging areas such as plasma aided aeronautics, plasma process control through machine learning, etc. Consistent with the recommendation made in the 2016 Frontiers of Plasma Science Workshops report, the goal of this FOA is to steward designated user facilities and/or centers that will have the capability for a broad spectrum of plasma parameter measurements and have significant potential for advancing fundamental and applied research in low temperature plasmas.

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