Dr. Trevor Lafleur

Biography

Trevor Lafleur is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Canberra with 14 years of experience in the fields of plasma physics and space propulsion. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Aeronautical Engineering and Experimental Theoretical Physics from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Australian National University. Dr. Lafleur has previously worked at prestigious institutions such as École Polytechnique in France, ONERA – the French Aerospace Lab, and the French National Space Agency (CNES). He is the founder of PlasmaPotential, a business that provides technical consulting for semiconductor and space industries, and serves as Principal Engineer and Program Manager at ThrustMe, a French deep tech company in the space sector. His work has made significant contributions to the understanding of radio-frequency plasmas and plasma instabilities, and he has been instrumental in pioneering new voltage waveform tailoring techniques for capacitively coupled plasmas. Dr. Lafleur has also been involved in the development of five new plasma propulsion concepts, contributing to the design of the world’s first iodine-fuelled electric propulsion system for space. His current research interests include space propulsion, alternative propellants, ionospheric plasma-satellite aerodynamics, and fundamental low-temperature plasma physics. He is actively seeking high-achieving Ph.D. candidates for projects related to electric propulsion systems.

Research Interests

Experience