In situ plasma contamination measurements by HeNe laser light scattering: A case study

Structure and Phase Transitions of Yukawa Balls

“…The measurements proved the existence of three stationary states. Most suprisingly, the metastable configuration (26, 5) was found to occure with an almost two times higher probability than the ground state (27,4) [(62 ± 13)% compared to (35 ± 10)%]. We will now analyze these observations theoretically.…”

“…7. The potential barrier for moving a particle inwards from (27,4) to (26,5) [lowest curve] shows where the particle returns; interestingly the sharp increase at r 0 ≈ 0.85 is matching the return point of r = 0.39mm in the experiment, cf. Fig.…”

“…∆ E/N config. 3.030266 (27, 4) 0.000479 (26,5) 0.000006 (27,4) Table 1 Energy difference between metastable states and the ground state (the ground state and its energy is given by bold numbers) as seen in Fig. 3.…”

“…The degeneracy factor assigns large statistical weight to states with more particles on inner shells. For example, for N = 31 the ratio of the factors for two configurations with, respectively, 4 and 5 particles on the inner shell is n (27,4) /n (26,5) = (26!5!)/(27!4!) = 5/27.…”

“…in the interplanetary medium, in interstellar clouds, in comet tails, and in the ring systems of the giant planets as well as in mesospheric noctilucent clouds [1,2]. At the same time, in microchip manufacturing, avoiding particle contamination during the many production steps that involve plasmas is a technological challenge [3,4]. On the other hand, the growth, transport, and deposition of nanoparticles is the central goal of many plasma deposition techniques, e.g.…”