Ecole Polytechnique: First meeting of the GDR EMILI on low temperature plasmas

From 25 to 28 October, the École Polytechnique welcomed more than a hundred researchers from all over France that study cold plasma and ionised media created by discharge and laser.

Plasmas represent a state of matter in which electrons are torn from the atoms with which they are usually associated in solids, liquids or gases. This is known as an ionised medium, in which interactions between electric charges give rise to novel properties. From the heart of stars to fluorescent tubes used for lighting, plasmas are very diverse, differentiated by their charge density and temperature.

The newly created research group (GDR) on the study of cold plasma ionised media created by discharge and laser (EMILI) focuses on the lower part of this spectrum. It brings together 42 laboratories located in France. This field of cold plasmas is indeed extremely vast (high or low pressure, magnetised or not, created by lasers). Some 160 researchers, including about 50 PhD students, met for the first EMILI GDR days from 25 to 28 October at the Ecole Polytechnique, thanks to the local organising committee initiated by the Plasma Physics Laboratory (LPP*) and the Laboratory of Physics of Interfaces and Thin Films (LPICM*).