Dusty plasmas

Technical Report · Wed May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/266370· OSTI ID:266370

Jones, M E; Winske, D; Keinigs, R; Lemons, D

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The objective of this project has been to develop a fundamental understanding of dusty plasmas at the Laboratory. While dusty plasmas are found in space in galactic clouds, planetary rings, and cometary tails, and as contaminants in plasma enhanced fabrication of microelectronics, many of their properties are only partially understood. Our work has involved both theoretical analysis and self-consistent plasma simulations to understand basic properties of dusty plasmas related to equilibrium, stability, and transport. Such an understanding can improve the control and elimination of plasma dust in industrial applications and may be important in the study of planetary rings and comet dust tails. We have applied our techniques to the study of charging, dynamics, and coagulation of contaminants in plasma processing reactors for industrial etching and deposition processes and to instabilities in planetary rings and other space plasma environments. The work performed in this project has application to plasma kinetics, transport, and other classical elementary processes in plasmas as well as to plasma waves, oscillations, and instabilities.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 266370
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--96-1341; ON: DE96010474
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
COSMIC DUST
DUSTS
GLOW DISCHARGES
INTERSTELLAR SPACE
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PARTICLE SIZE
PLASMA
PROGRESS REPORT