Eur. Phys. J. D (2021) 75: 183
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-021-00186-5

Topical Review - Plasma Physics

Theoretical and experimental aspects of non-equilibrium plasmas in different regimes: fundamentals and selected applications

¹ Istituto per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Plasmi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Bari-Milano, Italy
² Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
³ Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
⁴ Physics Department, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
⁵ Istituto Nazionale di Ottica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Pisa, Italy
⁶ Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi”, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
⁷ DIAM CONCEPT, ACCELAIR, 1 Chemin de la Porte des Loges, 78350, Les Loges en Josas, France
⁸ LSPM, CNRS - USPN, 99 avenue J. B. Clément, 93430, Villetaneuse, France

^a gianpiero.colonna@cnr.it

Received: 12 March 2021
Accepted: 20 May 2021
Published online: 24 June 2021

Abstract

This paper presents recent activities covering different plasma fields, from both theoretical and experimental point of views. An overview of the present interests of the scientific community is reported here. Starting from a brief description of the role of collisions in astrophysical plasmas, some fundamental aspects of gas discharges modelling, such as superelastic collisions and the basic concept of vibrational temperature, are discussed. Different plasma sources, as DBD and microwave discharges with their own specific applications, are reported. Edge plasmas in nuclear fusion reactors are investigated, focusing on the cooling mechanisms resulting from nitrogen puffing in the divertor region.