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Three-dimensionally extended dusty plasmas containing mixtures of two particle species of different size have been investigated on parabolic flights. To distinguish the species even at small size disparities, one of the species is marked with a fluorescent dye, and a two-camera video microscopy setup is used for position determination and tracking. Phase separation is found even when the size disparity is below 5%. Particles are tracked to obtain the diffusion flux, and resulting diffusion coefficients are in the expected range for a phase separation process driven by plasma forces. Additionally, a measure for the strength of the phase separation is presented that allows to quickly characterize measurements. There is a clear correlation between size disparity and phase separation strength.
Molecular dynamics simulations of binary dusty plasmas have been performed and their behavior with respect to the phase separation process has been analyzed. Here as well, it is found that even the smallest size disparities lead to phase separation. The separation is due to the force imbalance on the two species and the separation becomes weaker with increasing mean particle size.
In the second part of the thesis, Experiments on self-excited dust-density waves under various magnetic fields have been performed. For that purpose, different dust clouds of micrometer-sized dust particles were trapped in the sheath of a radio frequency discharge. The self-excited dust-density waves were studied for magnetic field strengths ranging from 0 mT to about 2 T. It was observed that the waves are very coherent at the lowest fields (B < 20 mT). At medium fields (20 mT < B < 300 mT), the waves seem to feature a complex competition between different wave modes before, at even higher fields, the waves become more coherent again. At the highest fields (B > 1 T), the wave activity is diminished. The corresponding wave frequencies and wavenumbers have been derived. From the comparison of the measured wave properties and a model dispersion relation, the ion density and the dust charge are extracted. Both quantities show only little variation with magnetic field strength.
This thesis discusses three publications in the field of dusty plasmas.
In the first section, measurements of the ir absorption of silica nanoparticles confined in an argon radiofrequency plasma discharge using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer have been performed. By varying the gas pressure of the discharge and duty cycle of the applied radiofrequency voltage, a shift of the absorption peak of silica is observed. This shift is attributed to charge-dependent absorption features of silica. The charge-dependent shift has been calculated for silica particles, and from comparisons with the experiment the particle charge has been retrieved using the infrared phonon resonance shift method. With the two different approaches of changing the gas pressure and altering the duty cycle, one is able to deduce a relative change of the particle charge with pressure variations and an absolute estimate of the charge with the duty cycle.
In the second part, infrared (IR) absorption spectra of melamine-formaldehyde (MF) microparticles confined in an rf plasma are studied at different plasma conditions. Several absorption peaks have been analysed in dependence of plasma power and their temporal evolution. For comparison, the IR absorption spectra of heated MF microparticles without plasma exposition are used to determine the general influence of the temperature on the IR spectra. Measuring the temperature of the particles inside the plasma shows that the temperature is not the only process changing the particles' IR spectra. Chemical changes of the MF particles with increasing plasma power influence the absorption peak structure.
Finally, experiments on dust clusters trapped in the sheath of a radio frequency discharge have been performed for different magnetic field strengths ranging from a few milliteslas to 5.8 T. The dynamics of the dust clusters are analyzed in terms of their normal modes. From that, various dust properties such as the kinetic temperature, the dust charge, and the screening length are derived. It is found that the kinetic temperature of the cluster rises with the magnetic field, whereas the dust charge nearly remains constant. The screening length increases slightly at intermediate magnetic field strengths. Generally, the dust properties seem to correlate with magnetization parameters of the plasma electrons and ions, however only to a small degree.
In this thesis, size-sensitive phenomena of three-dimensional dust crystals emerged in a low temperature plasma are presented. Depending on the number of particles in the system phase transitions, collective vortex motions and large-scaled expansions can be observed. To investigate these fascinating effects an advanced experimental setup as well as new evaluation methods have been developed. This thesis will present these new techniques and the gained insights.
The main issue of this thesis was the investigation of dusty plasmas in magnetic fields. We made use of spherical paramagnetic as well as non-magnetic plastic particles in the micrometer range, so-called dust particles. The particles were then trapped in the sheath region of the driven lower electrode of an rf discharge. The plasma chamber was surrounded by coils to apply a horizontal magnetic field with field strengths of up to B=50mT at the particles’ position. In this configuration the sheath electric field and the external magnetic field were perpendicular to each other. Only the electrons could be magnetized but this leads to several forces acting on the dust particles. In some aspects the dust clusters with the magnetic particles show a behavior that is in complete contrast to those consisting of the standard non-magnetic plastic particles. Both types of particles have in common that the dust clusters were found to move either towards the positive or negative ExB-direction as a reaction to the magnetic field. Whether the positive or negative direction was preferred depended on the experimental conditions. The forces that lead to this transport are plasma-based forces induced by the magnetic field. These investigations were performed on two-dimensional horizontal particle systems. Vertically aligned dust particles due to the ion focus interaction have also been studied to determine the influence of horizontal magnetic fields on the stability of such dust pairs. Under certain conditions the vertical alignment can be broken up by the magnetic field. Some additional experiments on the interaction of non-magnetic dust particles in a plasma with UV irradiation were performed, but a significant decrease of dust charge due to a photoelectric effect was not detected. In summary, even relatively weak horizontal magnetic fields have a strong influence on dust particle systems.
In this thesis, a stereoscopic camera system is presented that is designed for the use on parabolic flights for the investigation of dusty plasmas under microgravity conditions. This camera system consists of three synchronously triggered high-speed cameras observing a common volume of approximately (15 × 15 × 15) mm³ size. In this volume, the three-dimensional trajectories of a large number of particles surrounded by a dense dust cloud were reconstructed. For this task an intricate set of reconstruction algorithms has been developed, including a four-frame linking algorithm and a complex combined 2D/3D tracking algorithm for a reliable tracking of 3D particles. Furthermore, these algorithms effectively suppress so-called ghost particles in the evaluation process which are reconstructed from falsely identified 2D particle correspondences. Dusty plasmas under microgravity conditions are of special interest due to their complex structure and the variety of observable dynamic phenomena. Under typical discharge conditions, a central dust-free void is formed, surrounded by a dense particle cloud. Since the void is inherently dust-free, particles shot into the void can be uniquely identified and used to probe plasma properties inside this region. In the dust cloud itself, processes like self-excited dust-density waves can be observed under suitable experimental conditions. Using the presented camera setup and reconstruction algorithms, two parts of a dusty plasma under microgravity on parabolic flights are investigated. Initially, the force field creating and sustaining the central void is deduced and characterized. The combination of ion drag and electric field force is measured and compared to current models of the ion drag, showing a good agreement with these models. While previous investigations on the forces were limited to two-dimensional slices through the void, our measurements represent the first three-dimensional quantitative analysis of a large fraction of the void region. From this analysis the structure of the force field is determined and separated into a radial and a non-radial (or orthogonal) contribution. It is shown that the radial contribution dominates in the central void, while non-radial forces increase in magnitude close to the void edge. The radial domination is also observed in the velocity distribution of the probe particles which is significantly shifted to radially outward directed velocities for particles leaving the void. Assuming a strictly radial force profile in the horizontal mid-plane of the void, the friction coefficient determining the interaction of the probe particles with the neutral gas background is experimentally determined and shown to match the theoretical expectation. Subsequently, particles at the outer surface of the dust cloud are reconstructed. There, the particles are found to oscillate due to dust-density waves propagating through the high-density dust cloud. For the investigation of the correlation between waves and oscillating particles, the instantaneous wave and oscillation properties are determined and the instantaneous phase difference is obtained. Modeling the probe particles as driven, damped harmonic oscillators, these phase differences between waves and particles are interpreted with respect to the resonance frequency of the oscillating particles. Spatial variations of the phase difference are observed that may be attributed to different frequencies of the dust-density waves, or to changes of the resonance frequency induced by changing local plasma parameters. From a few measurements of particles oscillating at their resonance frequency, information about the surrounding plasma or properties of the particles themselves can be deduced. However, a larger number of reconstructed trajectories is necessary in order to interpret the phase differences on a reliable data basis. The presented camera setup in combination with the evaluation algorithms is a flexible system for the investigation of three-dimensional dusty plasmas. Its robust construction allows the operation of the system in challenging environments such as on parabolic flights, where spatial limitations and vibrations produced by the aircraft make special demands on such a diagnostic tool. This versatility makes our stereoscopic camera setup and the reconstruction process a suitable standard diagnostic for the application with dusty plasmas; this system will therefore be used in future research amongst other things for the investigation of boundary layers in extended three-dimensional dust clouds under microgravity.
This thesis constitutes a computational study of charge and ion drag force on micron-sized dust particles immersed in rf discharges. Knowledge of dust parameters like dust charge, floating potential, shielding and ion drag force is very crucial for explaining complex laboratory dusty plasma phenomena, such as void formation in microgravity experiments and wakefield formation in the sheaths. Existing theoretical models assume standard distribution functions for plasma species and are applicable over a limited range of flow velocities and collisionality. Kinetic simulations are suitable tools for studying dust charging and drag force computation. The main aim of this thesis is to perform three dimensional simulations using a Particle-Particle-Particle-Mesh ($P^3M$) model to understand how the dust parameters vary for different positions of dust in rf discharges and how these parameters on a dust evolve in the presence of neighboring dust particles. At first, rf discharges in argon have been modelled using a three-dimensional PIC-MCC code for the discharge conditions relevant to the dusty plasma experiments. All necessary elastic and inelastic collisions have been considered. The plasma background is found collisional, charge-exchange collisions between ions and neutrals being dominant. Electron and ion distributions are non-Maxwellian. The dominant heating mechanism is Ohmic. Then, simulations have been done to compute the dust parameters for various sizes of dust located at different positions in the rf discharges. Dust charge and floating potential in the presheath are slightly larger than the values in the bulk due to the higher electron flux to the dust particle in the presheath. From presheath to the sheath the charge and floating potential values decrease due to the decrease of the electron current to the dust. A linear dependence of dust potential on dust size has been found, which results in a nonlinear dependence of the dust charge with the dust size when the particle is assumed to be a spherical capacitor. This has been verified by independently counting the charges collected by the dust. %where indeed it has been noted that the dust charge %scales nonlinearly with the dust size. The computed dust parameters are also compared with theoretical models. Simulated dust floating potentials are comparable to values obtained from Allen-Boyd-Reynolds (ABR) and Khrapak models, but much smaller than the values obtained from Orbit Motion Limited (OML) model. The dust potential distribution behaves Debye-H\"{u}ckel-like. The shielding lengths are in between ion and electron Debye lengths. % indicating shielding by both ions and electrons. Further, the orbital drag force is typically larger than the collection drag force. The total drag force for the collisional case is larger than for the collisionless case and it scales nonlinearly with the dust size. The collection drag values and size-scaling agrees with Zobnin's model. The charging and drag force computation is then extended to two and multiple static dust particles in the rf discharge to study the influence of neighboring dust particles on the dust parameters. Initially, the dust parameters on two dust particles are computed for various interparticle separation distances and for dust particles placed at different locations in the rf discharge. It is observed that for dust separations larger than the shielding length the dust parameters for the two dust particles match with the single dust particle values. As the dust separation is equal to or less than the shielding length the ion drag force increases due to the buildup of a parallel drag force component. However, the main dust properties like charge, potential, vertical component of ion drag are not affected considerably. This is attributed to the smaller collection impact parameter values compared to the dust separation. %This is because the %collection impact parameter values in the sheath and the presheath are smaller %than the smallest dust separation and in case of the dust in the bulk, the %collection impact parameter is comparable with the dust separation. Then the dust charges on multiple dust particles located at different positions in the discharge and arranged along the discharge axis are also computed. It is found that the charges of the multiple dust particles in the bulk or presheath do not differ much from the single particle values at that location. But the dust charges of multiple dust particles located in the sheath drastically differ from the single dust parameter values. Due to ion focusing from dust particles in the upper layers, the ion current increases to dust particles in the lower layers resulting in smaller charge values. This is as well the case where dust particles are vertically aligned as in the standard experiments of dusty plasmas. In conclusion, this work used a fully kinetic (PIC and MD or $P^3M$) model to study the physics of dust charging in rf plasmas. Our simulations revealed that the dust parameters vary considerably from the bulk to the sheath. The CX collisions increase flux to the dust thereby affecting the dust parameters and their scaling with dust size. Also, a dust particle affects the charging dynamics of its neighbor only when their separation is within the shielding length. In the plasma sheath, ion focussing can cause great reduction in dust charges.