Aachen PK 2003 – scientific programme

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P: Plasmaphysik

P 17: Poster III

P 17.35: Poster

Thursday, March 20, 2003, 17:30–19:15, Foyer

Electron and Ion Density Reduction in a Complex Plasma — •Thomas Trottenberg, Björn Brede, Dietmar Block, and Alexander Piel — IEAP, Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel, 24098 Kiel

Particles of micron size in a plasma reduce the electron and ion densities of the embedding plasma. The dust particles are exposed to the fluxes of electrons and ions, which balance at the negative floating potential known from probe theories. Therefore the particles constitute a sink which drains equal fluxes of electrons and ions. On the other hand, if the dust density is high enough to make their Debye spheres overlap, the electron density will become lower than the ion density to maintain the overall quasi-neutrality. These two competing processes are studied in this contribution. In the experiment Matilda II (Brede et al., this conference), electron and ion density measurements with Langmuir probes at different dust densities (measured with ccd camera) are performed. The resonance cone method is used as an independent technique to measure the density of free electrons. The results are compared with theoretical models.