Generation of dust projectiles passing over an obstacle in the plasma sheath

Abstract

Dust projectiles were produced in a radio-frequency plasma by increasing 6-fold the radio-frequency power put into the discharge. The initial static dust particles were observed to gain speed while moving away from the confining region and escaped from the inter-electrode space on a ballistic-like trajectory. Single-grain dynamics simulations indicated that the dust particles were accelerated by changes induced in the sheath electric field profile. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.