Lab’s review – the research at the LPGP

The Laboratory of Physics of Gases and Plasmas

The Laboratoire de Physique des Gaz et des Plasmas d’Orsay, founded in the 1960s, is a Joint Research Unit (UMR 8578) attached to INSIS/CNRS (Institut des Sciences de l’Ingénierie et des Systèmes) under the dual administrative supervision of CNRS and Université Paris-Saclay. It carries out fundamental, experimental and theoretical research.

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

Located in the Campus of the Orsay Faculty of Science of the University of Paris-Saclay, the LPGP is France’s oldest university plasma physics laboratory. It is also among the largest, with a staff of about 60.

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 combine 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.).