Plasma Applications

High-power microwave (HPM) threats pose serious challenges to modern RF receivers, potentially driving sensitive front-end components into nonlinear or damaged states. Limiters and protection devices are essential to safeguard these systems and ensure the input remains within the spurious-free dynamic range. With increasing spectral congestion, there is a growing need for protection technologies that are not only robust and fast-acting but also frequency-selective and reconfigurable.

Plasma-based limiters have attracted significant interest due to their high-power handling, fast response, and ability to operate in harsh environments. However, conventional plasma limiters often suffer from limited frequency selectivity and modest isolation levels due to intrinsic plasma losses.

In this talk, We detail the design, modeling, and experimental validation of resonant and non-resonant configurations incorporating low-temperature plasma cells. These also include integrated filter-limiter and antenna-limiter systems aimed at reducing insertion loss and preserving the noise figure of protected receivers. The resulting devices demonstrate excellent isolation, fast power-dependent switching, and enhanced selectivity across target frequency bands. This work highlights the potential of advanced plasma limiter architectures as tunable, energy-resilient front-end protection solutions for next-generation RF and sensing systems.

Funding acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Grant N00014-21-1-2441.