Low-cost sensors and circuits for plasma education: characterizing power and illuminance

TL;DR

This paper presents affordable sensors and circuits for plasma education, enabling cost-effective measurement of plasma power and illuminance, thus facilitating plasma experiments and training in resource-limited settings.

Contribution

It introduces low-cost sensors and circuits for measuring plasma parameters, making plasma education more accessible and affordable.

Findings

Successfully measured high voltage, current, and power in plasma discharges.

Developed a low-cost illuminance sensor for plasma power estimation.

Demonstrated practical application in laboratory plasma experiments.

Abstract

Industrial applications of plasma have significantly increased beyond semiconductor manufacturing in recent years. This necessitates training a skilled workforce in plasma science and technology. However, an essential challenge to this end stems from the high cost of plasma devices and diagnostics. The limited access to plasma devices has hindered plasma education, particularly in the least developed countries. To this end, this paper demonstrates how low-cost sensors and circuits can be developed to enable inexpensive plasma experiments in laboratory environments. In particular, we show how to measure high voltage, current, and power from a cold-atmospheric plasma discharge. Additionally, we develop a low-cost illuminance sensor and demonstrate how it can be used to estimate the corresponding plasma power. The low-cost sensors and electronics presented in this paper can aid educators in characterizing plasma power versus plasma illuminance.