Announcing a Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
on HIPIMS and High Power Glow Discharges

(Scheduled for October 2010)

High Power Glow Discharges are transient discharges operating at simultaneously high voltage (>300 V) and high current density (>100 mAcm-2). They have recently been successful for the deposition of thin film materials. These discharges when applied to magnetron sputtering systems – High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HIPIMS) – have already attracted much attention in applications in aerospace, automotive, biomedical engineering, semiconductors, photovoltaics, optical coatings industries. A high degree of ionization of sputtered metal and strong activation of reactive gases mean that thin films can be deposited with fully dense and defect-free microstructure by a sputtering process which is inherently free of macroparticles. Film properties such as adhesion, hardness, smoothness, oxidation-, corrosion-, and wear- resistance, refractive index, conductivity, crystallinity can be enhanced. This rapidly evolving field is a point of focus in international conferences such as International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF), Annual Technical Conference of the Society of Vacuum Coaters (SVC TechCon), Plasma Surface Engineering (PSE), AVS International Symposium, International Colloquium on Plasma (CIP) and International Symposium on Plasma Chemistry have seen a rising number of papers in this area. Therefore, we invite members of IEEE and all researchers working in the field to submit manuscripts to this Special Issue on high power glow discharges and their applications.

The intent of this Special Issue is to present new results and developments in this exciting and technologically important area with tremendous industrial relevance. Contributions are broadly solicited in, the following topics:

• Novel high power glow plasma sources for deposition and substrate pretreatment
• Electrical characteristics of HIPIMS and high power glow plasmas
• Physics and modeling of HIPIMS and high power glow plasmas
• Plasma instrumentation such as plasma sources, power modulators and plasma diagnostics
• Pulsed power source technology
• Aerospace, automotive, biomedical applications
• Coatings for display and photovoltaic technology
• Fabrication of novel microelectronic structures and devices using plasma-based techniques
• Plasma deposition of nanomaterials and nanostructures
• Characterization of plasma-treated surfaces
• Plasma immersion ion implantation
• Related high power plasma sources

All contributions should reach the Guest Editors before February 1, 2010 via the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science IEEE Manuscript Central website at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tps-ieee. Questions regarding the Special Issue on HIPIMS and High Power Glow Discharges can be addressed to the Guest Editors: