Low Temperature plasma processing of materials: past, present and future

Evidently, all of our readers are well aware of the important role of plasma research as a modern discipline, but fewer are probably conscious of its historical roots, of its greater context, and of the impressive inventory of already-existing technological applications dispersed throughout an amazingly diverse industrial base. It is, therefore, the objective of this present Essay to bring closer to the readership these important characteristics of their chosen field, plasma science and technology, albeit in the form of a very brief overview. While this must necessarily be confined here to a few pages, more extensive documents with similar aims have appeared at various earlier dates. A partial list of these can be found as ref.,[1–4] and several of the illustrations in this Essay have been drawn from two of these (with permission).[3,4] We commence with an introduction to the plasma state, followed by some historical remarks and sketches of current technological applications and economics trends