ANTENTOP- 03- 2003, # 004

The Technology of the Future

Credit Line:

ASI Technology Corporation

http://www.asiplasma.com/

What is Plasma?

On earth we live upon an island of "ordinary" matter. The different states of matter generally found on earth are solid, liquid, and gas. Sir William Crookes, an English physicist identified a fourth state of matter, now called plasma, in 1879. Plasma is by far the most common form of matter. Plasma in the stars and in the tenuous space between them makes up over 99% of the visible universe and perhaps most of that which is not visible. Important to ASI's technology, plasmas are conductive assemblies of charged and neutral particles and fields that exhibit collective effects. Plasmas carry electrical currents and generate magnetic fields.

Plasma Antenna Technology

The essence of a plasma antenna is that it is equal to performance of a metal antenna but is lighter. When a plasma antenna is turned off, it is transparent - immune to electronic countermeasures and allowing other adjacent antennas to transmit or receive without interference.

Since the discovery of radio frequency ("RF") transmission, antenna design has been an integral part of virtually every communication and radar application. Technology has advanced to provide unique antenna designs for applications ranging from general broadcast of radio frequency signals for public use to complex weapon systems. In its most

common form, an antenna represents a conducting metal surface that is sized to emit radiation at one or more selected frequencies. Antennas must be efficient so the maximum amount of signal strength is expended in the propogated wave and not wasted in antenna reflection.

Plasma antenna technology employs ionized gas enclosed in a tube (or other enclosure) as the conducting element of an antenna. This is a fundamental change from traditional antenna design

that generally employs solid metal wires as the conducting element. Ionized gas is an efficient conducting element with a number of important

advantages. Since the gas is ionized only for the time of transmission or reception, "ringing" and associated

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