The use of plasmas, created by electric discharges, as aerodynamic actuators has been an exciting research topic for more than ten years. However, investigation of these electric discharges is still incomplete. This paper presents our contribution to the study of a DBD surface discharge. Complementary and coherent electrical, optical and aerodynamic measurements as a function of various parameters and geometries were performed. We measured the influence of the frequency and applied voltage of the discharge on the dissipated power. Experimental data yielded an empirical formula to calculate dissipated power and the energy lost in the dielectric was estimated. The plasma temperatures were also evaluated by spectroscopy emission measurements of N2 molecular bands. The velocity of the airflow induced by the DBD discharge in initially still air was measured as a function of the power dissipated in the discharge for different thicknesses and types of dielectric.

Constant flux atom deposition into a porous medium is shown to generate a dense overlayer and a diffusion profile. Scaling analysis shows that the overlayer acts as a dynamic control for atomic diffusion in the porous substrate. This is modeled by generalizing the porous diffusion equation with a time-dependent diffusion coefficient equivalent to a nonlinear rescaling of time.

Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out for describing deposition and annealing processes of AlCoCrCuFeNi high entropy alloy (HEA) thin films. Deposition results in the growth of HEA clusters. Further annealing between 300K and 1500K leads to a coalescence phenomenon, as described by successive jump in the root mean square displacement of atoms. The simulated X-ray diffraction patterns during annealing reproduces the main feature of the experiments: a phase transition of the cluster structure from bcc to fcc .