Plasma crystal
Under certain conditions, plasma crystals can form in complex ("dusty") plasmas . The dust particles that are electrically charged in the plasma are arranged in a regular, macroscopic grid . Plasma crystals enable the investigation of the properties of solids on the most fundamental level, the kinetic. This means that basic processes such as melting can be studied for the first time by observing the movement of individual particles. Since its discovery in the laboratory in 1994, the theoretical and experimental interest in plasma crystals has grown rapidly, as evidenced by an exponential increase in the number of publications in this area.
Fundamental work on plasma crystals was carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) under the direction of Gregor Morfill . For this purpose, microgravity experiments were also carried out in the ISS from 2001 onwards.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ H. Thomas, GE Morfill, V. Demmel, J. Goree, B. Feuerbacher, D. Möhlmann Plasma crystal: Coulomb Crystallization in a Dusty Plasma , Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 73, 1994, pp. 652-655