A stable atmospheric-pressure plasma for extreme-temperature synthesis

Hua Xie; Ning Liu; Qian Zhang; Hongtao Zhong; Liqun Guo; Xinpeng Zhao; Daozheng Li; Shufeng Liu; Zhennan Huang; Aditya Dilip Lele; Alexandra H Brozena; Xizheng Wang; Keqi Song; Sophia Chen; Yan Yao; Miaofang Chi; Wei Xiong; Jiancun Rao; Minhua Zhao; Mikhail N Shneider; Jian Luo; Ji-Cheng Zhao; Yiguang Ju; Liangbing Hu

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06694-1

A stable atmospheric-pressure plasma for extreme-temperature synthesis

Nature. 2023 Nov;623(7989):964-971. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06694-1. Epub 2023 Nov 29.

Authors

Hua Xie^#¹, Ning Liu^#², Qian Zhang^#¹, Hongtao Zhong², Liqun Guo³, Xinpeng Zhao¹, Daozheng Li⁴, Shufeng Liu¹, Zhennan Huang¹, Aditya Dilip Lele², Alexandra H Brozena¹, Xizheng Wang¹, Keqi Song⁵, Sophia Chen², Yan Yao³, Miaofang Chi⁶, Wei Xiong⁴, Jiancun Rao⁷, Minhua Zhao¹, Mikhail N Shneider², Jian Luo⁵, Ji-Cheng Zhao⁸, Yiguang Ju^{9

10}, Liangbing Hu^{11

12}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
² Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
³ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TcSUH), University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
⁵ Department of NanoEngineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁶ Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA.
⁷ Advanced Imaging and Microscopy Laboratory, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. jczhao@umd.edu.
⁹ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. yju@princeton.edu.
¹⁰ Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, USA. yju@princeton.edu.
¹¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. binghu@umd.edu.
¹² Center for Materials Innovation, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. binghu@umd.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38030779
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06694-1

Abstract

Plasmas can generate ultra-high-temperature reactive environments that can be used for the synthesis and processing of a wide range of materials^1,2. However, the limited volume, instability and non-uniformity of plasmas have made it challenging to scalably manufacture bulk, high-temperature materials^3-8. Here we present a plasma set-up consisting of a pair of carbon-fibre-tip-enhanced electrodes that enable the generation of a uniform, ultra-high temperature and stable plasma (up to 8,000 K) at atmospheric pressure using a combination of vertically oriented long and short carbon fibres. The long carbon fibres initiate the plasma by micro-spark discharge at a low breakdown voltage, whereas the short carbon fibres coalesce the discharge into a volumetric and stable ultra-high-temperature plasma. As a proof of concept, we used this process to synthesize various extreme materials in seconds, including ultra-high-temperature ceramics (for example, hafnium carbonitride) and refractory metal alloys. Moreover, the carbon-fibre electrodes are highly flexible and can be shaped for various syntheses. This simple and practical plasma technology may help overcome the challenges in high-temperature synthesis and enable large-scale electrified plasma manufacturing powered by renewable electricity.