Chonglin Zhang
University of North Dakota, ND·Engineering
Plasma, an electrically charged gas often called the fourth state of matter, drives technologies from spacecraft thrusters to the etching of computer chips. Simulating how billions of charged particles move and collide is computationally demanding, and some long-standing puzzles remain unsolved, such as why electrons in certain thrusters drift across magnetic fields faster than theory predicts.
- Fields
Engineering
Physics
Computer Science
- Topics
low-temperature plasma
plasma physics
particle-in-cell
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Develop accurate, scalable algorithms for particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulations on unstructured meshes, which are flexible grids that fit complex device geometries, targeting GPU-accelerated supercomputers.
- Integrate these algorithms into a computational framework capable of simulating hundreds of billions of particles on thousands of GPUs, and verify and validate its results across multiple time and length scales.
- Use the framework to investigate anomalous electron transport in low-temperature E × B plasma discharges, where crossed electric and magnetic fields confine the plasma, as used in electric space propulsion.
- Simulate plasma-surface interactions in E × B discharges to understand processes relevant both to thruster operation and to microelectronics manufacturing.
More about the research
Better simulation tools could help explain these effects and guide the design of plasma devices.
Why it matters
More reliable plasma simulations could help engineers design more efficient electric thrusters for spacecraft, and could improve understanding of how plasma interacts with surfaces during semiconductor manufacturing. Scalable GPU-based tools may make it practical to study plasma processes that are difficult to measure directly, which could eventually inform materials processing and water treatment applications.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Colby Haggerty
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Physics·Early-career
Determine how a velocity shear between neighboring plasma flows changes the rate, outflow speed and heating of collisionless magnetic reconnection, using kinetic modeling and theory.
Qi Fan
Michigan State University, MI·Engineering
Test the hypothesis that low-energy ion bombardment acts as atomic-scale local heating, allowing polycrystalline, highly conductive and transparent oxide films such as ITO to grow at room temperature.
Chuji Wang
Mississippi State University, MS·Physics
Design an optical trapping system that uses focused laser light to pin down single dust grains suspended in a low-temperature plasma and transport them in a controlled way to any position within the plasma device.
The school
University of North Dakota: 5 labs on PI Pages, $197M a year on research, 112 research doctorates a year.
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