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Emission Spectroscopic Boundary Layer Investigation during Ablative Material Testing in Plasmatron
Published on: June 9, 2016
Formation of a boundary-free dust cluster in a low-pressure gas-discharge plasma
A D Usachev1, A V Zobnin, O F Petrov
1Joint Institute for High Temperatures of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 125412, Russia. usachev@ihed.ras.ru
Abstract:
An attraction between negatively charged micron-sized plastic particles was observed in the bulk of a low-pressure gas-discharge plasma under microgravity conditions. This attraction had led to the formation of a boundary-free dust cluster, containing one big central particle with a radius of about 6 microm and about 30 1 microm-sized particles situated on a sphere with a radius of 190 microm and with the big particle in the center. The stability of this boundary-free dust cluster was possible due to its confinement by the plasma flux on the central dust particle.
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