Plasmas play a crucial role in a vast range of processes for materials synthesis and processing, from industrial settings to cutting-edge laboratory investigations. Plasma-based techniques can be deployed in a wide range of experimental conditions, varying from low- to high-pressure (vacuum, atmospheric and above), temperature and including diverging degrees of equilibrium (from thermal equilibrium to non-equilibrium). These features are key to develop next generation materials and their potential integrations for advanced applications. Due to the wide range of processing conditions and the characteristic energy coupling, the unique reaction pathways of plasmas have enabled the establishment of important and widespread techniques (e.g. PECVD, physical sputtering, reactive etching). These characteristic plasma features are now creating cutting edge next-generation material processes, which include the potential of many plasma-enhanced techniques (e.g. plasma-assisted 3D printing and atomic layer etching) as well as novel evolving approaches (e.g. flow-through nucleation, hybrid plasma-liquid processes, ‘plasma catalysis’).


This symposium is a forum that brings together experts in different fields that encompass different areas of plasma-based synthesis, processing and applications. Specifically, the symposium aims to highlight how plasmas can greatly contribute to innovative 3D printing, the development of biosensors, processes for flexible/textile and unconventional surfaces. It will emphasize materials with unique and tailored properties for energy applications, materials for extreme conditions and structural composites. Further, the complexity of plasmas ideally lends itself to data-driven materials research. Therefore, the symposium will also include topics that relate to artificial intelligence and machine learning allowing optimization of material synthesis and treatment and efficient exploration in the parameter space.

additive manufacturing crystal growth nucleation & growth plasma deposition plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) (deposition) reactive ion etching sputtering