Vol. 25 No. 6
November-December 2003

Plasma Chemistry

by Stephen Girshick

The 16th International Symposium on Plasma Chemistry, ISPC-16, was held in Taormina, Italy, from 22–27 June 2003, under the auspices of IUPAC and of the International Plasma Chemistry Society. The symposium was organized by an International Organizing Committee chaired by Prof. R. d’Agostino of the University of Bari, Italy, and by a Local Organizing Committee, co-chaired by Prof. d’Agostino, P. Capezzuto, and M. Capitelli.

The symposium was attended by 641 registered participants from 44 countries, including Italy (103), Japan (103), France (92), Germany (67), Czech Republic (41), the United States (36), Canada (28), Russia (23), the Netherlands (14), the United Kingdom (14), Switzerland (12), Poland (11), South Korea (11), and 31 other countries. The excellent attendance and widespread international participation reflect the increasing importance and vitality of the field of plasma chemistry. However, we note with regret that none of our Chinese colleagues were able to attend due to the SARS epidemic.

The symposium was preceded (18–20 June) by three separate summer schools held in Taormina, devoted to Low-Pressure Plasma Processing of Materials, High-Pressure Plasma Processing of Materials, and Plasma Processes for Microelectronics. On 21 June a workshop was held on Industrial Applications of Plasma Chemistry. There were 57 total participants for the summer schools and 94 for the workshop.

The symposium itself consisted of 810 contributions, including 5 plenary lectures, 15 topical invited talks, 20 invited talks for three special sessions, 116 other oral presentations, and 654 posters. Attendees received a book containing one-page abstracts of all contributions, together with a compact disk containing the full proceedings, including the full-length contributed papers and abstracts of the topical and plenary invited talks. The full texts of the plenary and invited lectures will be published in Pure and Applied Chemistry. The book of abstracts and CD proceedings were edited by R. d’Agostino, P. Favia, F. Fracassi, and F. Palumbo. This was the first time that the full ISPC proceedings, well over 4000 pages, were published on CD.

Plenary lectures were presented as follows:
• M. Kuzuya on “Recent Advances on Plasma Techniques for Bio-Medical and Drug Engineering”
• M. Wertheimer on “Plasmas and Polymers”
• A. Fridman on “Non-thermal Atmospheric Pressure Discharges”
• N. Sadeghi on “High Sensitivity Laser-Based Techniques Applied for Plasma Diagnostics”
• P. Fauchais on “Plasma Spraying from Thick to Thin Coatings and Micro to Nano Structured Coatings”

Among the topics covered in the regular sessions were fundamentals of plasma-surface interactions; nonequilibrium effects and atmospheric pressure plasma processes; plasma sources; plasma deposition of inorganic and hard coatings; clusters, particles, and powders; plasma chemical synthesis; and hybrid plasma/radiation processes. In addition, special sessions were organized on biomedical applications of plasma processes, plasma treatment of wastes, and atmospheric pressure plasma processes.

The Plasma Chemistry Award, recognizing outstanding achievement over a career in the field of plasma chemistry, was presented to Prof. Charles H. Kruger of Stanford University. The Best Paper Awards were given to three young scientists: Gudrun A. Saevarsdottir, of the University of Iceland, for “A Novel Approach to Cathode/Anode Modelling for High Current AC-Arcs”; Shinsuke Mori, Tokyo Institute of Technology, for “Numerical Analysis of Carbon Isotope Separation by Plasma Chemical Reactions in CO Glow Discharge”; and Peter Messerer, Munich University of Technology, for “Characterisation of a Double Inductively Coupled Plasma Reactor.”

Elections were held during the symposium for several openings on the Board of Directors of the International Plasma Chemistry Society. The next president of the society will be Kunihide Tachibana, of the University of Kyoto, Japan, and the next vice president will be Jean-Michel Pouvesle, of the University of Orléans, France.

The next International Symposium on Plasma Chemistry, ISPC-17, will be held in Toronto, Canada, 7–12 August 2005.