List of plasma physicists
This is a list of physicists who have worked in or made notable contributions to the field of plasma physics.
| Name | Known for | Recognition | |
| development and characterization of x-ray sources from laser-wakefield accelerators | |||
| magneto-hydrodynamics | Nobel Prize | ||
| Alfvén Prize | |||
| numerical contributions to the fundamental physics of magnetically confined plasmas | |||
| simulations of transport and turbulence in strongly rotating plasmas | APS Fellow | ||
| Z-pinch is a form of "Bennett pinch". Also invented radio frequency mass spectrometry. | - | ||
| fundamental theoretical contributions plasma physics including a wave mode in his name | James [Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics|Maxwell Prize] | ||
| First suggested that polar electric currents are connected to a system of filaments that flow along geomagnetic field lines into and away from the polar region. | - | ||
| derived the Bohm sheath criterion, which states that a plasma must flow with at least the speed of sound toward a solid surface | - | ||
| COMPASS CASTOR tokamak, GOLEM tokamak | - | ||
| computational plasma physics and plasma simulation, Farley–Buneman instability | - | ||
| established the links between sheared plasma flow and turbulent transport | Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics|Maxwell Prize] | ||
| created the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket concept, an electromagnetic thruster for spacecraft propulsion | - | ||
| relativistic laser-matter interactions using femtosecond PW lasers | APS Fellow | ||
| developed kinetic theory of gases and applied it to study the magnetosphere | - | ||
| electrostatic probes, textbook | Maxwell Prize | ||
| design of high field tokamaks | Maxwell Prize | ||
| astrophysical and turbulent plasmas | - | ||
| vacuum tubes and the Crookes tube | - | ||
| one-component non-neutral plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| introduced the use of computer simulation to plasma physics | Maxwell Prize | ||
| Debye shielding and Debye length | Nobel Prize | ||
| theory of the fundamental mechanism of fast reconnection of magnetic fields in plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| co-led the Spheromak project | - | ||
| magnetic fusion energy research | APS Fellow | ||
| invention of the cathode-ray tube, television and Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor | - | ||
| theoretical development of efficient rf-driven current in plasmas | |||
| theory of magnetically confined plasmas, including fundamental work on the formulation of the MHD Energy Principle | Maxwell Prize | ||
| resistive instabilities | Maxwell Prize | ||
| theory of electromagnetic wave propagation in plasmas | - | ||
| fundamental contributions to the physics of low temperature plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| empirical scaling relationship for the confinement of energy in tokamak plasmas | APS Fellow | ||
| responsible for building Princeton Large Torus and Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at PPPL | - | ||
| beam-plasma interactions | Maxwell Prize | ||
| theoretical contributions to magnetohydrodynamics | Maxwell Prize | ||
| contributions to theory of magnetohydrodynamic equilibria and ideal and resistive instabilities | Maxwell Prize | ||
| contributions to plasma spectroscopy and spectral line broadening in plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| theories of nonlinear drift wave turbulence, including the Hasegawa-Mima equation | |||
| fundamental contributions to the physics of low temperature plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| hohlraum design for inertial confinement fusion | APS Fellow | ||
| nuclear processes in low-temperature plasmas | Macedonian [Academy of Sciences and Arts] | ||
| interaction of solar plasma with the Earth's magnetosphere and radiation belts | Weimer Award | ||
| HT-7 tokomak | Chinese Academy of Engineering | ||
| inertial fusion science stellar nucleosynthesis | |||
| application of plasma concepts to high energy electron and positron acceleration | |||
| early plasma turbulence theory, stability and nonlinear theory of MHD and kinetic instabilities | Maxwell Prize | ||
| founding director of Institute for Plasma Research | - | ||
| fundamental contributions to the basic plasma physics of collisionless shocks | Maxwell Prize | ||
| invention of the levitated toroidal multipole | Maxwell Prize | ||
| laser isotope separation, Chief Science Officer of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission | - | ||
| studies of Alfven waves and aurorae | APS Fellow | ||
| hohlraum design, first laboratory burning and igniting fusion plasma | APS Fellow | ||
| theoretical and experimental understanding of intense electromagnetic waves with plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| plasma theory including magnetic reconnection | Maxwell Prize | ||
| Landau damping | Nobel Prize | ||
| 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. | Nobel Prize | ||
| Plasma pencil, biomedical applications of low temperature plasma, plasma medicine | APS Fellow | ||
| focus fusion and plasma cosmology | - | ||
| contributions in high energy density physics and inertial confinement fusion research | Maxwell Prize | ||
| computational research in nonlinear physics in the boundary layers of space plasmas | Weimer Award | ||
| experimental demonstration of Landau damping and development of pure electron plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| nonlinear dynamics of dusty plasma physics | Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award | ||
| turbulence in space and astrophysical plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| particle transport in tokamaks | APS Fellow | ||
| plasma crystals as a solid state of aggregation of dusty plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| theory and kinetic simulations of nonlinear processes in plasma-based acceleration | Maxwell Prize | ||
| electric field measurements in space plasma | APS Fellow | ||
| theory of ionized plasmas | |||
| introduced the inertial confinement approach to fusion | Maxwell Prize | ||
| plasma theory, including extension of Landau damping to the nonlinear regime | Maxwell Prize | ||
| developed the doublet approach for toroidal confinement fusion | Maxwell Prize | ||
| plasma astrophysics, including predicting the solar wind, explaining the solar dynamo, and formulating the theory of magnetic reconnection | |||
| Paschen's law, an equation relating the breakdown voltage to the gas pressure and electrode gap length | |||
| influential advocate of plasma cosmology | |||
| inertial confinement fusion, Raman amplification of lasers in plasma | |||
| linear and nonlinear plasma waves and wave-particle interactions | |||
| developed the magnetic mirror concept for magnetic confinement fusion | Maxwell Prize | ||
| energy transfer in magneto-fluid turbulence | Alfvén Prize | ||
| stable plasmas in tokamaks, experimental measurement of plasma energy | Alfvén Prize | ||
| laser-plasma interactions | APS Fellow | ||
| fundamental theoretical contributions plasma physics, and in particular, plasma instabilities | |||
| statistical mechanics of particles with Coulomb interactions | Maxwell Prize | ||
| Wingless Electromagnetic Air Vehicle and serpentine geometry plasma actuator | - | ||
| theory of low and high energy density plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| theory of collisionless shocks and stochastic magnetic fields | Maxwell Prize | Alfvén Prize | |
| Spitzer resistivity, Project Matterhorn | Maxwell Prize | ||
| high intensity laser interactions with plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| doublet approach for toroidal confinement fusion | Maxwell Prize | ||
| generation and propagation of intense ion beams | Maxwell Prize | ||
| developer of numerical simulations for plasma physics | APS Fellow | ||
| invention of and development of techniques to accumulate, confine, and utilize positron plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| helicity conservation, bootstrap current, ballooning transformation, plasma theory | |||
| dynamics of charged particles and plasma in the Van Allen radiation belt | Weimer Award | ||
| Vlasov equation models plasma with long-range interaction between particles | - | ||
| discovery of H-mode in ASDEX in 1984 | Alfvén Prize | ||
| plasma magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium and stability theory | - | ||
| turbulent transport in tokamaks | Weimer Award | ||
| experimental studies of magnetic reconnection relevant to space, astrophysical and fusion plasmas | Maxwell Prize | ||
| laser-plasma interactions | Weimer Award | ||
| energetics, stability, and dynamics of astrophysical plasmas | Maxwell Prize |