Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Department Chair
Professor Tynan's current research interests include basic studies of plasma turbulence and transport, low-temperature plasma physics with applications to materials processing, and plasma-nanocluster interactions. Plasma, a hot gas heated to the point where it becomes ionized, is relevant to a number of engineering applications. He is using plasma to modify surface to create integrated circuits (e.g. Pentium chips, memory chips, semiconductors, etc.), and improve existing manufacturing techniques. He is also interested in experiments to optimize fusion in order to produce efficient, clean, and sustainable energy.
Bio
George R. Tynan received his Ph.D. in 1991 from the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. He then spend several years studying the effect of sheared flows on plasma turbulence on experiments located in the Federal Republic of Germany and at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He then returned to UCLA where he helped develop a concept for a new fusion experiment currently under construction. He joined the MAE faculty in July 1999 after spending several years investigating the application of low-temperature plasmas to the creation of nano-meter scale semiconductor circuits.