Scientists have transformed plasma into a freezing ray!

Chilling rays have until now remained in the realm of science fiction, and mainly reserved for the weapons of bad guys, like Mr. Freeze in Batmanor Captain Cold in The Flash. However, a group of scientists, led by Professor Patrick Hopkins from the University of Virginia in the United States, is currently working on a very real version.

In two articles published in the journals Nature Communications et ACS Nano, the researchers detail how they managed to use plasma to create cold. The idea is particularly counterintuitive since plasma, which corresponds to the fourth state of matter, is made up of particles ionized at extremely high temperatures.

Cool with hot plasma

Researchers have managed to measure the temperature extremely precisely when a jet of helium plasma hits a gold-plated surface. They discovered that before heating, the surface is briefly cooled. They determined that this effect is produced by the evaporation of an ultrathin layer of carbon and water molecules.

So far, they have managed to reduce the surface temperature by several degrees for a few microseconds, but that’s only the beginning. The researchers received funding from theUS Air Force up to $750,000 over three years to create a prototype. This technology could notably be used in spacecraft and planes flying at high altitudes to cool electronic components, when the air density is too low to carry the heat away. The researchers plan to test gases other than helium, as well as the interaction of plasma with other materials.