The cleanliness and functionalization of metal surfaces are critical factors to determining their performance in high-performance microelectronic packaging, reliable biomedical implants, advanced composite bonding, and other fields. Compared to traditional wet cleaning methods, plasma cleaning technology has emerged as a research hotspot in surface engineering due to its unique advantages, such as high efficiency and environmental friendliness. It operates under versatile conditions (e.g., power: tens of watts to several kilowatts; pressure: atmospheric to low vacuum; treatment time: seconds to minutes), enabling not only efficient contaminant removal but also targeted surface functionalization, including dramatically enhanced hydrophilicity (e.g., contact angles from >80° to <10°), significantly improved adhesion (e.g., up to 40% increase in bond strength), and modifications in surface roughness, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility. This review systematically elaborates on the physical, chemical, and synergistic mechanisms of plasma cleaning technology as it acts on metal surfaces. It focuses on plasma cleaning applied to copper, aluminum, titanium and their respective alloys, as well as alloy steels, providing a detailed analysis of contaminant types, plasma cleaning methodologies, common challenges, surface functionalization responses, and subsequent functional applications. Furthermore, this review discusses the current challenges faced by plasma cleaning technology and offers perspectives on its future development directions. It aims to systematize the research progress in plasma cleaning of metal surfaces, thereby facilitating the transition of this technology towards large-scale industrial applications for metal surface functionalization.

Under the given initial discharge energy level, altering the electrode structural parameters of the Ablative Pulse Plasma Thruster (APPT) is an effective way to improve the performance of the thruster. The purpose of this study is to reveal the underlying mechanism of the effect of changing the electrode structure parameters on the performance of the APPT system and to offer targeted support for researchers to optimize the design of APPT structure. With rectangular and tongue-shaped electrode configurations at various electrode flare angles, electrode lengths, and electrode spacings, the discharge characteristics, propellant ablation characteristics, and thruster performance of the APPT are systematically investigated. The underlying mechanism of how changing the electrode’s configuration parameter affects the performance of the thruster is identified by fitting and predicting the parameters of the APPT discharge circuit and system performance under various operating conditions. The results show that using tongue-shaped electrodes is more effective than using rectangular electrodes in terms of enhancing the inductive gradient of the electrodes, transferring more energy to the discharge channel, and increasing the squared integral value of the discharge current. As a result, the tongue-shaped electrode APPT performs better than the APPT with rectangular electrodes, as a consequence. The thruster’s performance can be enhanced for the same electrode configuration by increasing the electrode flare angle within a certain angle range; however, the improvement is extremely limited. Additionally, in the case of small electrode spacing, increasing the electrode flare angle can enhance the thruster’s performance more effectively.