Coulomb stable structures of charged dust particles in a dynamical trap at atmospheric pressure in air

Abstract

A mathematical simulation of a dust particle's behavior in the electrodynamic linear quadrupole trap with closing end electrodes allowed us to reveal several features of the phenomena. Regions of stable confinement of a single particle, in dependence of frequency and charge-to-mass ratio, were determined. With an increase of the medium's dynamical viscosity, the region for confining charged particles by the trap becomes wider. We obtained values of the maximum quantities of charged particles confined by the trap at atmospheric pressure in air. Firstly, we presented observations of ordered Coulomb structures of charged dust particles obtained in the quadrupole trap in air at atmospheric pressure. The structures consisted of positively charged oxide aluminum particles 10-15 µm in size and hollow glass microspheres 30-50 µm in diameter. The ordered structure could contain particles of different sizes and charges. The trap could confine a limited number of charged particles. The ordered structures of charged micro-particles obtained in the experiments can be used to study Coulomb systems without neutralizing the plasma background and action of ion and electron flows, which are always present in non-homogeneous plasma.

The charging of microparticles in corona discharge in the air

“…Расстояние между сечения-ми, в которых располагались коронирующие и заземленные электроды, составляло 13 мм. Заряд частиц определялся с помощью линейной электродинамической ловушки [9]. Подробное описание используемого метода измерения заряда дано в работе [10].…”

Particle dynamics in damped nonlinear quadrupole ion traps

“…The images in Figure 7 were obtained in a "4-bar" MQIT consisting of four identical conducting bars, collinear in the z direction and arranged on the corners of a square in the xy plane [19]. The bars had a diameter of 3.2 mm, and their nearest separation was 6.7 mm.…”

“…Moreover, MQITs are quite inexpensive to construct, levitating particles in air using 50-60 Hz electric fields, making them well suited for teaching [17,18,10]. Besides individual particles, MQITs can also trap large numbers of charged particles that self-organize into Coulomb crystalline structures [18,10,19].…”

Linear electrodynamic trap as a tool for cleaning dusty surfaces

“…Linear electrodynamic quadrupole traps were used to create and study stable extended Coulomb structures containing thousands of charged dust particles . Studies have shown that linear traps are able to confine charged dust particles in air flows, and they can be used as selective filters for the purification of air from the dust particles .…”