PIFE-PIC simulation of charging of a dielectric sphere immersed in a stationary plasma. The floating potential and OML sheath profile are successfully resolved. Reference: Daoru Han, Xiaoming He, and Joseph Wang. PIFE-PIC: A 3-D Parallel Immersed Finite Element Particle-in-Cell Framework for Plasma Simulations. 2018 AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (SciTech Forum), Kissimmee, FL, January 8 - 12, 2018, AIAA 2018-2196. [link]

March 2021: The radiant heaters arrived! Liquid nitrogen cooling system on the way!

5/12/2020: Demonstration of the concept of using solar wind plasma as direct ISRU electricity power source - an LED (left) lit up by the voltage difference between ion-dominant regions and electron-dominant regions in the plasma chamber (right). Photo Courtesy of Terence McGarvey, Blake Folta, and Joshua Burch.

November 2019 - : The 12-cm RF plasma source running in the vacuum chamber (1.8-m diameter, 3-m long) at Missouri S&T. Reference: Blake A. Folta, Terence W. McGarvey IV, Joseph C. Faudel, Kyle R. McMillen, and Daoru Han. Development and Characterization of an Ion Source to Simulate Solar Wind Plasma in a Vacuum Chamber. AIAA SciTech 2020 Forum, Orlando, FL, January 6 - 10, 2020, AIAA 2020-0048. [link]