Fundamentals and Applications of High-pressure Induction Thermal Plasmas with Coil Current Modulation

This paper presents a summary of fundamental principles and applications of modulated induction thermal plasmas that have been developed by the author’s group. The modulated induction thermal plasma is established using a coil current that is modulated to the order of several hundreds of amperes at a millisecond time scale. Such a large current modulation enables the creation of a large disturbance in high-pressure and high-temperature plasmas. It also enables control of the temperature and radical density in thermal plasmas in a time domain. Examples are described for application of the modulated induction thermal plasma to surface modification. Thermally and chemically nonequilibrium effects are essential in temperature and radical density fields. The latest result is also presented for various applications of modulated induction thermal plasmas. Finally, dynamic behaviors of a recently developed arbitrarywaveform modulated induction thermal plasma are also introduced as a new type of modulated induction thermal plasma.