Recent development of new inductively coupled thermal plasmas for materials processing

ABSTRACT This paper explains recent developments in the field of inductively coupled thermal plasmas (ICTP or ITP) used for materials processing. Inductive coupling technique is important to produce thermal plasma with high gas temperature at high pressures. Conventional cylindrical ICTP was developed originally in the 1960s by T. Reed. It remains widely used for different materials processing today, with almost identical configuration to the original version. Through some revision and improved functionalization, ICTPs of several kinds such as DC–RF hybrid ICTP have also been developed. They are also widely adopted for processing of various materials because of their various benefits. Inductively coupled plasma at low pressures are not treated herein: only thermal plasma with high enthalpy. One is modulated induction thermal plasma (MITP), which has a function of controlling the temperature and chemical active fields in the time domain. Another development in ICTP includes changes in the ICTP configuration such as a planar-ICTP and loop-ICTP. These were developed for large-area materials processing. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT