Self-excited instabilities in plasmas containing dust particles (dusty or complex plasmas)

Maxime Mikikian (1) , Marjorie Cavarroc (1) , Lénaïc Couëdel (1) , Yves Tessier (1) , Laïfa Boufendi (1)

1 GREMI - Groupe de recherches sur l'énergétique des milieux ionisés

Dusty plasmas are complex systems where new phenomena arise from the presence of solid dust particles inside a plasma. Dust particles acquire a negative charge by attaching free electrons and are thus trapped in the plasma. This charge loss can be drastic for the plasma equilibrium and instabilities can appear due to the strong interdependence between the dust particle cloud and the plasma. In this paper, various types of self-excited instabilities consisting in regular or chaotic oscillations, are presented. They are obtained in low pressure radio-frequency discharges where dust particles are grown by using a reactive gas or by sputtering a surface exposed to the plasma. The complex evolution scheme of these instabilities is brought to the fore thanks to various diagnostics.

Mots clés: Dust; Plasma; Instabilities; Nanoparticle; Fourier analysis

Domaines: Plasmas; Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]

Maxime Mikikian, Marjorie Cavarroc, Lénaïc Couëdel, Yves Tessier, Laïfa Boufendi. Self-excited instabilities in plasmas containing dust particles (dusty or complex plasmas). Chaos, Complexity and Transport: Theory and Applications, Jun 2007, Marseille, France. pp.217. ⟨hal-00332695⟩