This paper reports on the dynamics of a 3-dimensional dusty plasma in a strong magnetic field. An electrostatic potential well created by a conducting or non-conducting ring in the rf discharge confines the charged dust particles. In the absence of the magnetic field, dust grains exhibit a thermal motion about their equilibrium position. As the magnetic field crosses a threshold value (B > 0.02 T), the edge particles start to rotate and form a vortex in the vertical plane. At the same time, the central region particles either exhibit thermal motion or E→×B→ motion in the horizontal plane. At B > 0.15 T, the central region dust grains start to rotate in the opposite direction resulting in a pair of counter-rotating vortices in the vertical plane. The characteristics of the vortex pair change with increasing the strength of the magnetic field (B ∼ 0.8 T). At B > 0.8 T, the dust grains exhibit very complex motion in the rotating torus. The angular frequency variation of rotating particles indicates a differential or sheared dust rotation in a vortex. The angular frequency increases with increasing the magnetic field from 0.05 T to 0.8 T. The ion drag force and dust charge gradient along with the E-field are considered as possible energy sources for driving the edge vortex flow and central region vortex motion, respectively. The directions of rotation also confirm the different energy sources responsible for the vortex motion.

This paper reports experiments on self-excited dust acoustic waves (DAWs) andits propagation characteristics in a magnetized rf discharge plasma. The DAWs are spontaneously excited in dusty plasma after adding more particles in the confining potential well and found to propagate in the direction of streaming ions. The spontaneous excitation of such low-frequency modes is possible due to the instabilities associated with streaming ions through the dust grain medium. The background E-field and neutral pressure determine the stability of excited DAWs. The characteristics of DAWs strongly depend on the strength of external magnetic field. The magnetic field of strength B < 0.05 T only modifies the characteristics of propagating waves in dusty plasma at moderate power and pressure, P = 3.5 W and p = 27 Pa, respectively. It is found that DAWs start to be damped with increasing the magnetic field beyond B > 0.05 T and get completely damped at higher magnetic field B ∼ 0.13 T. After lowering the power and pressure to 3 W and 23 Pa respectively, the excited DAWs in the absence of B are slightly unstable. In this case, the magnetic field only stabilizes and modifies the propagation characteristics of DAWs while the strength of B is increased up to 0.1 T or even higher. The modification of the sheath electric field where particles are confined in the presence of the external magnetic field is the main cause of the modification and damping of the DAWs in a magnetized rf discharge plasma. K E Y W O R D Sdust acoustic wave, magnetized dusty plasma, magnetized plasma, RF discharge, superconducting magnet 1The presence of submicron to micrometre-sized particles in a plasma makes it more complex because these particles alter the dynamics of the plasma species (electrons and ions) as well as they exhibit their own dynamics. Such medium, which consists of three charged species namely electrons, ions, and charged solid particles, is termed as a dusty plasma or complex plasma. In the background of a low-temperature plasma, energetic electrons impinge on the surface of the solid particle and charge their surface negatively up to 10 3 -10 5 times of an electron charge [1] to balance the fluxes of electrons and ions. After the density of negatively charged dust particles crosses a critical value, then long-range coulombic interaction among the dust particles turnsThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Three-dimensional plasma crystals are often described as Yukawa systems for which a phase transition between the crystal structures fcc and bcc has been predicted. However, experimental investigations of this transition are missing. We use a fast scanning video camera to record the crystallization process of 70 000 microparticles and investigate the existence of the fcc-bcc phase transition at neutral gas pressures of 30, 40, and 50 Pa. To analyze the crystal, robust phase diagrams with the help of a machine learning algorithm are calculated. This work shows that the phase transition can be investigated experimentally and makes a comparison with numerical results of Yukawa systems. The phase transition is analyzed in dependence on the screening parameter and structural order. We suggest that the transition is an effect of gravitational compression of the plasma crystal. Experimental investigations of the fcc-bcc phase transition will provide an opportunity to estimate the coupling strength Γ by comparison with numerical results of Yukawa systems.

A new quantitative evaluation of tunable diode laser induced fluorescence (TDLIF) measurements in magnetized plasma is presented in this article, taking into account Zeeman splitting of energetic levels as well as inter- and intra-multiplet mixing, defining the density distribution (alignment) of the excited 2p8 multiplet of argon. TDLIF measurements were used to evaluate light-transport properties in a strongly magnetized optically thick argon plasma under different pressure conditions. Therefore, a coupled system of rate balance equations was constructed to describe laser pumping of individual magnetic sub-levels of the 2p8 state through frequency-separated sub-transitions originating from 1s4 magnetic sub-levels. The density distribution of the 2p8 multiplet was described by balancing laser pumping with losses, including radiative decay, transfer of excitation between the neighboring levels within the 2p8 multiplet driven by neutral collisions, and quenching due to electron and neutral collisions. Resulting 2p8 magnetic sub-level densities were then used to model polarization dependent fluorescence, considering self-absorption, which could be directly compared with measured polarization-resolved TDLIF measurements. The achieved results enable to obtain unique solutions for the 1s4 and 1s5 magnetic sub-level densities which were found to be in good agreement with the densities obtained by laser absorption measurements. It is shown that polarization resolved TDLIF measurements in magnetized plasma conditions have strong pressure dependence. The effective disalignment rate constant which redistributes the 2p8 sub-levels among each other has to be considered for a correct description of the TDLIF. This rate is dependent on the neutral gas density and a specific rate coefficient. With the presented method, 1s state densities involved in the TDLIF can be determined without any absolute intensity calibration in an optically thick plasma. Additionally, the presented measurement method and model can help to further understand and improve the description of optical emission of argon based on individual sub-transition descriptions under magnetized conditions.

Potential in biomedical-related applications by atmospheric pressure plasma-treated water gradually increased recently. In order to enhance the generation of reactive species in atmospheric pressure plasma in regards to liquid treatment, this study aims to investigate the effect of external axial magnetic field on a helium atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) and plasma-irradiated water. Magnetic field strength up to 2.0 T was generated by an electromagnet in Helmholtz configuration. The dielectric barrier discharge-based APPJ is driven by 4.4 slm helium and sinusoidal 30 kHz, 10 k V p p signals. Plasma was mainly characterized by optical emission where vibrational and rotational temperature was estimated by nitrogen second positive system, and electron temperature and density by emission intensity line ratio method. Representative reactive species of nitrite, nitrate, and hydrogen peroxide concentration in the plasma-treated water were also quantified. Results of vibrational temperature and electron density showed a first drop then rise trend which partially corresponds to the reactive species in the plasma-treated water. No significant changes were found in rotational temperature, while electron temperature monotonically increased with the magnetic field.