Plasma-material interaction: From surfaces and cells to biomolecules
Johannes Gruenwald, Extreme Light Infrastructure Beamlines Research Center, Prague
abstract: Over the years plasma has played a crucial role in surface modification processes, such as sputtering, activation or deposition of various materials. As the plasma-surface interactions are very complex, there is a lack of scientific understanding in this topic. This problem became even more pronounced in recent years, as it became feasible to generate plasma in the laboratory frame, which does not induce thermal damage on heat sensitive materials like paper, polymers, textiles or even living tissue. As these materials are mostly consisting of large, complex organic molecules, the study of the plasma-surface interaction is highly challenging. Most of the underlying chemical and physical processes are barely or not at all understood. Thus, it is vital to enhance the basic knowledge about the interaction between different types of plasma and organic materials to optimise industrial and medical plasma-based processes. However, the experimental access to these problems is very challenging, especially when it comes to biomedical samples were the complexity is even larger as one has to investigate mostly living cells or cell systems. The aim of this talk is to outline how the scientific understanding of plasma interaction with industrially and medically relevant materials can be enhanced by studying the effects of plasma interaction with biomolecules.
