Microplasmas, a platform technology for a plethora of plasma applications

Publications describing microplasmas, which are commonly defined as plasmas with at least one dimension in the submillimeter range, began to appear to the scientific literature about 20 years ago. As discussed in a recent review by Schoenbach and Becker [1], interest and activities in basic microplasma research as well as in the use of microplasma for a variety of application has increased significatly over the past 20 years. The number of papers devoted to basic microplasma science increased by an order of magnitude between 1995 and 2015, a count that excludes publications dealing exclusively with technological applications of microplasmas, where the microplasma is used solely as a tool. In reference [1], the authors limited the topical coverage largely to the status of microplasma science and our understanding of the physics principles that enable microplasma operation and further stated that the rapid proliferation of microplasma applications made it impossible to cover both basic microplasma science and their application in a single review article.