Plasma
Plasma (from the Ancient Greek for “mouldable substance”) is one of the four fundamental states of matter besides solids, liquids and gasses. It consists of a gas of ions - atoms or molecules which have one or more orbital electrons stripped (or, rarely, an extra electron attached), and free electrons.
Excluding dark matter and the even more elusive dark energy, plasma is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the universe. Plasma is mostly associated with stars, including our Sun, and extending to the rarefied intracluster medium and possibly to the intergalactic regions.
Plasma can be artificially generated by heating a neutral gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field. The presence of free charged particles makes plasma electrically conductive, with the dynamics of individual particles and macroscopic plasma motion governed by collective electromagnetic fields and very sensitive to externally applied fields. The response of the plasma to electromagnetic fields is used in many modern technological devices, such as plasma cutters, plasma televisions or plasma etching.
Depending on temperature and density, a certain amount of neutral particles may also be present, in which case plasma is called partially ionized. Neon signs and lightning are examples of partially ionized plasmas. Unlike the phase transitions between the other three states of matter, the transition to plasma is not well defined and is a matter of interpretation and context: Whether a given degree of ionisation suffices to call the substance "plasma" depends on a specific phenomenon being considered. In other words, plasma is a matter which cannot be correctly described without the presence of charged particles taken into account.
