Dr. John D. Williams
Director, Electric Propulsion & Plasma Engineering Laboratory
Professor
Mechanical Engineering
School of Advanced Materials Discovery
Dr. Williams’s research interests include modeling of erosion phenomena of ion thruster components such as ion extraction grids and hollow cathodes, as well as experimental evaluation of plasma and ion beam interactions with materials for both aerospace and terrestrial applications. Recent work has been in fabricating superlattice quantum well structures for high figure of merit thermoelectics and producing plasmas in confined pockets to enhance thin film deposition processes for solar cells.