The Plasma Physics Division is one of 18 research divisions at the Naval Research
Lab that focuses on plasmas which are the fourth state of matter.
Currently the division has a really broad portfolio of research everything
from fusion research we're doing research into pulse power and
high-energy beams, plasma processing for advanced electronics to the plasmas that
exist in the ionosphere and magnetosphere of the earth.
Both commercial and military systems and our daily operations are more and more
reliant on space systems. So, the Navy has a vested interest in making sure that we
can always communicate to those systems and that they're protected from the
natural environment or artificially created of things. So with the space
chamber we can generate magnetospheric and ionospheric plasmas under scaled
conditions where we can conduct repeatable well controlled experiments
that are a cost-effective alternative to launching satellites and sounding
rockets and making measurements in space. SPADE is a space diagnostic that was
first started out as a laboratory diagnostic where we're trying to measure
background plasma parameters are important as inputs to space weather
models but in addition can measure differential charging that can occur in
spacecraft. So, this has been tested in our laboratory here in the space chamber
and now it's going to go up on as part of the STP- H6 pallets, a collection of
instruments going to the International Space Station, where we'll be able to
test this diagnostic in a relevant environment.
NRL is a great place to do research. Scientists here are given free rein to pursue any kind of idea
they have, if it has if they can show relevance to not even today's Navy but the Navy 20 years from from now.
The matrix lab itself was a very unique facility
here at NRL. What we've been working on for a number of years now is bringing
in a source where we can have very high intensity laser pulses that range all
the way from the x-ray all the way out to the
terahertz regime at the same time that's synchronized to femtoseconds with
particle beams so that's ion and electron beams that allows us to do
really unique come program analysis. Things like plasmas or other different
materials that would be useful for the Navy.
The nike laser at NRL is the
world's highest energy excimer laser, the world's deepest UV high-energy laser
it's a gas laser as opposed to glass laser so it also has the potential for high rep rate operation.
For somebody basically focus on two areas there's the
target issues which all the plasma physics and high energy density physics
that we like to work but really the facility is devoted to study another
side is the driver itself which is the Krypton fluoride laser so not only are
we doing plasma physics experiments we're also doing laser development work.
The excimer lasers natively have have a wider spectrum than high-energy lasers
that have been used in the past. This technology seems to show large prompting
premise in helping suppress these deleterious target instabilities.
Our research with pulse power driven electron beams and ion beams is to
support the Department of Defense and Department of Energy in various missions.
Our bread and butter for our branch is the simulation of nuclear weapons
effects so we try to make electron beams or the ion beams cleaner better stronger
faster to do the right mission. Our mercury accelerator goes up to about 8
million volts, eight mega volts but the current is 200 kilo amps. So, we store up
energy over many minutes timescale and discharge it over a few nanoseconds
timescale. Another piece of the work that we do for electron beams and ion beams
is to take x-rays flash x-rays. We generate very bright flashes of x-rays
to take photographs of something moving a dynamic material interaction so
explosives driving materials and we take pictures and try to understand the physics of what's going on.
In the plasma application section we look at
applications where low temperature plasmas can be used
to modify or process materials that are used in next-generation devices they can
be low power or high power electronics, they can be used for sensors those
materials can be used as coatings those coatings can be protective wear those
coatings can be adaptive in nature and and those various devices and coatings
are typically used to advance the needs of our warfighters.
Science by nature is pretty organic so it's sometimes hard to predict where
science will go but what I think the division will do is use those creative
ideas and innovative ideas to to continue to adjust serious problems that we have.
Plasma physics has in the last 50 to 60 years has become a discipline that
touches everyone's lives. From advanced electronics to space weather that
impacts our ability to communicate and navigate so what I'm hoping to see in
plasma physics is it becomes even more pervasive in the quest for new knowledge
new applications in this endless frontier of science.