Prof. Sedina Tsikata

Georgia Institute Of Technology, USA
Dr. Sedina Tsikata's research interests are the fundamental nature and applications of magnetized plasmas, with a focus on the development of advanced diagnostics, analysis methods, control, and new plasma devices. Her research has been applied to the study of instabilities and electron features in Hall plasma thrusters for space propulsion and in other magnetized plasma environments relevant to materials processing and accelerator physics. Dr. Tsikata’s research has involved the development of new laser scattering platforms providing access to electron dynamics and properties in low-temperature, crossed-field devices. Prior to joining the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Associate Professor in 2023, Dr. Tsikata was a researcher with the CNRS (the National Center for Scientific Research) in France. Dr. Tsikata received graduate degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique in France, and a bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Tsikata is the recipient of international awards which include the 2022 Crookes Prize, co-sponsored by the European Physical Society and Institute of Physics Publishing, and the 2019 AIAA Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in Electric Propulsion. She has also received French national awards (2020 Bronze Medal of the CNRS, and the 2011 René Pellat Prize of the French Physics Society).

Talk title: Understanding complex features of partially-magnetized deposition plasmas
Crossed-field plasma discharge configurations give rise to complex features, including various types of instabilities created by the relative drifts of ions and electrons, and large-scale self-organization. Devices where such phenomena arise include planar magnetrons, widely-used for plasma-assisted deposition in direct current and pulsed high power impulse sputtering regimes. Although the connection between such features and macroscopic device performance still requires clarification, such features are associated with anomalous transport and heating of charged species. Understanding such features requires advanced numerical modeling, theory, and experiments. In recent work, information on the highly-dynamic electron properties and drifts, and electron density fluctuations associated with different instabilities, has been obtained using coherent and incoherent Thomson scattering. This talk focuses on the new understanding gained from such studies and future directions of study.