List of plasma physicists

Short description: none

This is a list of physicists who have worked in or made notable contributions to the field of plasma physics.

Name | Known for

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Robert Ellis | Head of experimental projects at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; co-led the Spheromak project
Igor Grabec | Exploration of unstable ionization waves (striations) in a positive column of a glow discharge and corresponding ionization turbulence.
Hannes Alfvén | 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics "for fundamental work and discoveries in magneto-hydrodynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics"
Irving Langmuir | coined the term "plasma" to hint at the lifelike behavior of this state of matter. Developed electron temperature concepts and an electrostatic probe, the Langmuir probe.
Ksenia Aleksandrovna Razumova | first stable plasmas in tokamaks, first experimental measurement of plasma energy with diamagnetic loop, disruption studies, confinement studies, pioneering female leader of Russian fusion research, Alfvén Prize 2017
Anatoly Vlasov | first suggested the Vlasov equation, a correct description of plasma with long-range interaction between particles
Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov | proposed the development of the tokamak device for use in controlled thermonuclear fusion.
Boris B. Kadomtsev | early plasma turbulence theory, stability and nonlinear theory of MHD and kinetic instabilities. James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1998)
Katherine Weimer | scientific research in the field of plasma magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium and stability theory
Yu Lin | computational research in nonlinear physics in the boundary layers of space plasmas, Katherine Weimer Award (2002).
Elena Belova | numerical contributions to the fundamental physics of magnetically confined plasmas, Katherine Weimer Award (2005).
Lin Yin | research on instabilities and magnetic reconnection in space plasmas and of the physics of relativistic laser-plasma interactions through complex modeling, Katherine Weimer Award (2008).
Yuan Ping | pioneering experiments to explore the interaction of high-intensity laser light with matter, Katherine Weimer Award (2011).
Anne White | fundamental contributions to the understanding of turbulent transport in tokamaks, Katherine Weimer Award (2014).
Félicie Albert | pioneering development and characterization of x-ray sources from laser-wakefield accelerators, Katherine Weimer Award (2017).
Maria Gatu Johnson | significant contributions to Inertial fusion sciences and pioneering work in Stellar Nucleosynthesis through nuclear measurements, Katherine Weimer Award (2019).
Kristian Birkeland | First suggested that polar electric currents (or auroral electrojets) are connected to a system of filaments (now called "Birkeland currents") that flow along geomagnetic field lines into and away from the polar region.
Lev Landau | Landau damping
Meghnad Saha | Saha ionization equation
Sydney Chapman | development of the kinetic theory of gases
Vitaly Ginzburg | theory of electromagnetic wave propagation in plasmas
Vitaly Shafranov | theoretical contributions to plasma physics (e.g. Grad–Shafranov equation, Kruskal–Shafranov instability)
Willard Harrison Bennett | Z-pinch is a form of "Bennett pinch". Also invented radio frequency mass spectrometry.
Lyman Spitzer | theoretical contributions to plasma physics, Spitzer resistivity, director of Project Matterhorn (1951-1961), James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1975)
Marshall Rosenbluth | fundamental theoretical contributions plasma physics, and in particular, plasma instabilities, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1976)
John M. Dawson | introduced the use of computer simulation to plasma physics, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1977)
Richard F. Post | developed the magnetic mirror concept for magnetic confinement fusion, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1978)
Tihiro Ohkawa | developed the doublet approach for toroidal confinement fusion, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1979)
Thomas H. Stix | developed the doublet approach for toroidal confinement fusion, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1980)
John H. Nuckolls | introduced the inertial confinement approach to fusion, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1981)
Ira B. Bernstein | fundamental theoretical contributions plasma physics including a wave mode in his name, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1982)
Harold Fürth | fundamental contributions to plasma physics including resistive instabilities, Director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (1981-1990), James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1983)
Donald W. Kerst | invention of the levitated toroidal multipole, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1984)
John H. Malmberg | experimental demonstration of Landau damping and development of pure electron plasmas, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1985)
Harold Grad | theoretical contributions to magnetohydrodynamics, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1986)
Bruno Coppi | pioneering work in the conceptual and engineering design of high field tokamaks, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1987)
Norman Rostoker | pioneering theoretical contributions to the statistical mechanics of particles with Coulomb interactions, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1988)
Ravindra Sudan | pioneered the study of the generation and propagation of intense ion beams, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1989)
William L. Kruer | seminal contributions to the theoretical and experimental understanding of the intense electromagnetic waves with plasmas, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1990)
Hans R. Griem | contributions to plasma spectroscopy and spectral line broadening in plasmas, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1991)
John M. Greene | contributions to theory of magnetohydrodynamic equilibria and ideal and resistive instabilities, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1992)
Russell M. Kulsrud | pioneering contributions to basic plasma theory, including magnetic reconnection, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1993)
Roy W. Gould | pioneering research in beam-plasma interactions, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1994)
Francis F. Chen | pioneering works on electrostatic probes, the plasma physics textbook "Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion"James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1995)
Thomas M. O'Neil | seminal contributions to plasma theory, including extension of Landau damping to the nonlinear regime James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1996)
Charles F. Kennel | fundamental contributions to the basic plasma physics of collisionless shocks James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1997)
John Bryan Taylor | helicity conservation, bootstrap current, ballooning transformation, plasma theory James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (1999)
Akira Hasegawa | theories of nonlinear drift wave turbulence, including the Hasegawa-Mima equation James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2000)
Roald Sagdeev | contributions to modern plasma theory including collisionless shocks and stochastic magnetic fields James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2001)
Edward A. Frieman | theory of magnetically confined plasmas, including fundamental work on the formulation of the MHD Energy Principle James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2002)
Eugene N. Parker | seminal contributions in plasma astrophysics, including predicting the solar wind, explaining the solar dynamo, and formulating the theory of magnetic reconnection James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2003)
Noah Hershkowitz | fundamental contributions to the physics of low temperature plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2004)
Valery Godyak | fundamental contributions to the physics of low temperature plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2004)
Nathaniel Fisch | theoretical development of efficient rf-driven current in plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2005)
Chandrashekhar J. Joshi | application of plasma concepts to high energy electron and positron acceleration James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2006)
John Lindl | contributions in high energy density physics and inertial confinement fusion research James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2007)
Ronald C. Davidson | pioneering contributions to the physics of one-component non-neutral plasmas, first director of MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (1991-1996), director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (1991-1996), James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2008)
Maxim G. Ponomarev [1] | pioneering investigations of disturbances of all plasma species by modeling charged particle emissions from imaginary and additional sources:. Imaginary-emission method for modeling disturbances of all magnetoplasma species: Reflecting and absorbing objects in motion through a rarefied plasma at different angles to the ambient magnetic field (Phys. Rev. E 54, 5591 – Published 1 November 1996) [2] and First suggested the Resonant Moments method for Enhanced acceleration of electrons populations by crossing electron cyclotron waves in an ambient magnetic field [3] [4]
Miklos Porkolab | pioneering investigations of linear and nonlinear plasma waves and wave-particle interactions James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2009)
James Drake | theory of the fundamental mechanism of fast reconnection of magnetic fields in plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2010)
Gregor Eugen Morfill | discovery of plasma crystals as a solid state of aggregation of dusty plasmas (1994). Former Director of Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2011)
Liu Chen | recipient of numerous awards for research on plasma physics (e.g. John Dawson Prize (2004), Hannes Alfvén Prize (2008) and James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2012))
Phillip A. Sprangle | pioneering contributions to the physics of high intensity laser interactions with plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2013)
Clifford Surko | invention of and development of techniques to accumulate, confine, and utilize positron plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2014)
Masaaki Yamada | fundamental experimental studies of magnetic reconnection relevant to space, astrophysical and fusion plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2015)
Ellen G. Zweibel | seminal research on the energetics, stability, and dynamics of astrophysical plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2016)
Dmitri Ryutov | contributions to the theoretical plasma physics of low and high energy density plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2017)
Keith H. Burrell | established the links between sheared plasma flow and turbulent transport James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2018)
William H. Matthaeus | pioneering research into the nature of turbulence in space and astrophysical plasmas James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2019)
Warren Bicknell Mori | pioneering contributions to the theory and kinetic simulations of nonlinear processes in plasma-based acceleration James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (2020)
Melvin Gottlieb | responsible for building Princeton Large Torus and Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at PPPL, director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (1961-1980)
Robert J. Goldston | empirical scaling relationship for the confinement of energy in tokamak plasmas, director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (1997-2008)
Stewart C. Prager | director of the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) experiment, director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (2008-2016)
Sir Steven Cowley | pioneering research in astrophysical and turbulent plasmas, director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (2018–present)
Friedrich Wagner | discovery of H-mode in ASDEX in 1984
Anthony Peratt | influential advocate of plasma cosmology
David Bohm | derived the Bohm sheath criterion, which states that a plasma must flow with at least the speed of sound toward a solid surface
Eric Lerner | pioneer of focus fusion and advocate of plasma cosmology
Forrest S. Mozer | electric field measurements in space plasma
Fran Bošnjaković |
Franklin Chang-Diaz | created the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) concept, an electromagnetic thruster for spacecraft propulsion
Friedrich Paschen | Paschen's law, an equation relating the breakdown voltage to the gas pressure and electrode gap length
Ghulam Murtaza |
Mounir Laroussi | Plasma pencil, seminal contributions to the biomedical applications of low temperature plasma, plasma medicine
Nam Chang-hee |
Li Jiangang |
Harold P. Eubank |
Oscar Buneman | computational plasma physics and plasma simulation, Farley–Buneman instability
Peter Debye | Nobel Prize–winning physicist and chemist, after whom Debye shielding and Debye length are named
Philo Farnsworth | invention of the cathode ray tube, television and Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor
Predhiman Krishnan Kaw | founding director of the Institute for Plasma Research (1986-2012)
Radu Bălescu | recipient of the Hannes Alfvén Prize in 2000
Ratko Janev |
Rudolf Seeliger | specialized in electric discharges in gases and plasma physics
Subrata Roy | invention of the Wingless Electromagnetic Air Vehicle and serpentine geometry plasma actuator
Shaukat Hameed Khan | laser isotope separation, Chief Science Officer of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (1969-2005)
William Crookes | pioneer of vacuum tubes and the Crookes tube
A A Mamun | pioneer of nonlinear dynamics of dusty plasma physics, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award in 2009 from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

## See also

* Whistler (radio) waves
* Langmuir waves

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