Rok Zaplotnik, of the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, was one of the first 11 fellows in the incoming scheme selected after the NEWFELPRO's First Call in 2013. Rok, who has a PhD in physics, is also one of the first researchers who succesfully implemented his project „The Diagnostic of Discharge and Laser-Driven Atmospheric Plasma Jets by Laser Spectroscopy Techniques (AtmJetsLaser)“. Dr.Slobodan Milošević's group (http://spectra.ifs.hr) from the Institute of Physics was his host from May 2014 to May 2015.
The focus of the project was the diagnostics of the atmospheric plasma jets. A lot of work can be found in the literature about characterization of the free standing atmospheric plasma jets however not much research have been published about the diagnostic of the plasma jets during the treatment of various materials and the effect of the treated material on the plasma itself and this is the main focus of the project. Additional focus was on laser-driven atmospheric plasma jets, where plasma jets are ignited with laser, focused on a spot at the beginning of the jet. To the best of Rok’s knowledge there are no published works in this topic. For the plasma diagnostics mostly laser spectroscopy techniques were used.
During his project, Rok presented at a 16th International Conference on Thin Films in Dubrovnik (16ICTF), the results on a poster, the best one yet in Rok's humble opinion, entitled “Reciprocal influence of multiple harmonic ACdriven plasma needle jet and sample surface”. He also presented the results of his work on a poster entitled “Atmospheric pressure plasma needle jet parameters influenced by sample surface”at a 22nd International scientific meeting on vacuum science and technique in Osilnica in Slovenia.
Interesting detail of his research is the fact he actively cooperated with PhD candidates of the School of Dental Medicine in Zagreb due to the common usage of atmospheric plasma jets.
Based on his research, Rok published following works:
Zaplotnik, R.: Bišćan, M.: Kregar, Z.:Cvelbar, U.:Mozetič, M.:Milošević, S., Influence of a sample surface on single electrode atmospheric plasma jet parameters. Spectrochim. Acta B 2015, 103–104, 124–130.
Zaplotnik, R.; Bišćan, M.: Krstulović, N.: Popović, D.: Milošević, S. Cavity ring-down spectroscopy for atmospheric pressure plasma jet analysis. Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 2015, in-press
Santak, V.; Zaplotnik, R.; Tarle, Z.; Milosevic, S., Optical emission spectroscopy of atmospheric pressure plasma jet during treatment of tooth bleaching gels, Appl. Spectrosc. 2015, November issue
Santak, V.; Zaplotnik, R.; Milosevic, S.; Klaric, E.; Tarle, Z., Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet as an Accelerator of Toot Bleaching. Acta. Stomatol. Croat. 2014, 48, 268–278.
Upon finishing his NEWFELPRO project, Rok returned to the Jozef Stefan Institute in order to continue with his research.