Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 26, 2026

Experimental Methods of Dust Charging and Mobilization on Surfaces with Exposure to Ultraviolet Radiation or Plasmas
Published on: April 3, 2018
Plasma anisotropy around a dust particle placed in an external electric field
G I Sukhinin1,2,3, A V Fedoseev1,3, M V Salnikov1
1Institute of Thermophysics, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia.
Abstract:
A self-consistent model of plasma polarization around an isolated micron-sized dust particle under the action of an external electric field is presented. It is shown that the quasineutral condition is fulfilled and the formed volume charge totally screens the dust particle. The ion focusing and wake formation behind the dust particle are demonstrated for different ion mean free paths and the external electric fields. It is obtained that at low values of the external electric field the trapped ions play the main role in the screening of the dust particle charge. For high external electric fields, the density of trapped ions decreases and the dust particle is screened mainly by the free ions.
Related Concept Videos
Electric Field of a Charged Disk
The system's symmetry is in the cylindrical directions across the plane of the charge. As a result, the electric fields created by various surface charge elements nullify each other in the direction parallel to the surface. Thereby, the resulting electric field is perpendicular to the plane. Since the disk is...
Induced Electric Dipoles
Since the absolute value of potential energy holds no physical meaning, its zero value can be chosen as per...
Electric Field of a Non Uniformly Charged Sphere
Consider a non-uniformly charged sphere, for which the density of charge depends only on the distance from a point in space and not on the direction. Such a sphere has a spherically symmetrical charge distribution. Here, the electric...
Potential Due to a Polarized Object
Electric Field of Two Equal and Opposite Charges
A separation of the positive and negative charges can lead to a weak, remnant effect of the positive and negative charges. The expectation is that the more the distance between the positive and...
Gauss's Law: Planar Symmetry

