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Evolution of a dust void in a radio-frequency plasma sheath
R P Dahiya1, G V Paeva, W W Stoffels
1Department of Physics, University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Physical Review Letters
|September 13, 2002
Abstract:
The onset and growth of a dust void are investigated in a radio-frequency (rf) sheath of a capacitively coupled argon plasma. A circularly symmetric void emerges and grows with increasing rf power and pressure in the central region of the dust cloud levitating in the sheath. Experimental measurements of the void diameter are compared with the predictions of a simple phenomenological theory, based on a balance of forces on dust grains.