The phase separation in binary mixtures of charged particles has been investigated in a dusty plasma under microgravity on parabolic flights. A method based on the use of fluorescent dust particles was developed that allows us to distinguish between particles of slightly different size. A clear trend towards phase separation even for smallest size (charge) disparities is observed. The diffusion flux is directly measured from the experiment and uphill diffusion coefficients have been determined.
The dust density is a central parameter of a dusty plasma. Here, a tomography setup for the determination of the three-dimensionally resolved density distribution of spatially extended dust clouds is presented. The dust clouds consist of micron-sized particles confined in a radio frequency argon plasma, where they fill almost the entire discharge volume. First, a line-of-sight integrated dust density is obtained from extinction measurements, where the incident light from an LED panel is scattered and absorbed by the dust. Performing these extinction measurements from many different angles allows the reconstruction of the 3D dust density distribution, analogous to a computer tomography in medical applications.
In dense dust clouds of a dusty plasma single particle trajectories are impossible to follow due to occlusion of particles and ambiguities in particle correspondences. By stereoscopic imaging of fluorescent tracer particles, we were able to reconstruct 3D single particle trajectories within dense dust clouds. Several measurements are shown that justify to regard the tracer particles as suitable representatives for the whole dust system. A first analysis of dust density waves in dense clouds already shows that these waves exhibit three-dimensional dynamics at larger wave amplitudes that cannot be resolved by 2D imaging techniques: a broad velocity distribution perpendicular to the oscillation plane due to dust-dust collisions is seen, while the velocity distribution in the oscillation direction is bimodal and shifted due to the bulk wave propagation.
Experiments on dust-density waves have been performed in dusty plasmas under the microgravity conditions of parabolic flights. Three-dimensional measurements of a dust density wave on a single particle level are presented. The dust particles have been tracked for many oscillation periods. A Hilbert analysis is applied to obtain trajectory parameters such as oscillation amplitude and threedimensional velocity amplitude. While the transverse motion is found to be thermal, the velocity distribution in wave propagation direction can be explained by harmonic oscillations with added Gaussian (thermal) noise. Additionally, it is shown that the wave properties can be reconstructed by means of a pseudo-stroboscopic approach. Finally, the energy dissipation mechanism from the kinetic oscillation energy to thermal motion is discussed and presented using phase-resolved analysis. V C 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx.
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