microplasma tagged posts

It may offer an inexpensive new way to generate a freely movable microplasma, as well as yield insights into fundamental physics questions. It surprisingly also creates a mini light show, with the droplet sparking as it floats above a faint blue glowing gap. It is similar to Leidenfrost levitation — in which droplets dance on a hot vapor cushion. But by creating the vapor with a strong jolt of electricity instead of heat, the researchers found they could ionize the gas into a plasma that glowed a soft blue light.

“This method is probably an easy and original way to make a plasma,” said Cedric Poulain, a physicist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission...