Plasma Nanoscience in a sustainability age

Summary form only given. This presentation focuses on nanoscale control of energy and matter for a sustainable future and the contributions of Plasma Nanoscience to the solution of the grand and as-yet-unresolved challenge of directing energy and matter at the nanoscale, a challenge that is critical for renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies for a sustainable future. This research aims to discover the most effective controls for deterministic nanoscale assembly based on precise control of matter and energy at nanoscales under far-from-equilibrium conditions. This control includes generation and manipulation of the plasma-generated building units and their arrangement into arrays of nanostructures with the required properties using effects not available in other nanofabrication techniques. These effects are related to ionization, charges, electric and magnetic fields, polarization, alteration of surface energy in specified regions, etc. In this way, the resulting arrays of nanoscale objects (quantum dots, nanotubes, nanowires, graphene, nanowalls, and other nanoparticles of desired shapes and structures, both free-standing and surface-bound) can be produced and processed more quickly and more uniformly in size and distribution, even without using pattern delineation techniques that presently dominate in nanofabrication technologies but are rapidly nearing their physical limits. This research is three-dimensional: it relates the targeted applications, the advanced nanomaterials (carbon, silicon, metal, oxides/nitrides and hybrid nanomaterials) for these applications, and the most suitable (e.g., hot/cold, low/high-pressure, thermal/non-equilibrium, etc.) plasmas and processes to produce these materials and device elements. The results of theoretical modeling, numerical simulations, and experiments on nanomaterials synthesis, characterization and applications are discussed. The outcomes promise faster, unprecedentedly-clean, human-health-friendly, and ener- y-efficient nanoscale synthesis and processing technologies as well as advanced (e.g., smart and responsive) functional materials for next-generation devices and systems for renewable energy (e.g., solar cells, batteries, supercapacitors), environmental (e.g., gas sensing), medicine and health care (drug delivery, cancer therapies, biosensing), and human nutrition (pathogen inactivation in food, water purification) applications.