Self-excited dust-acoustic waves in an electron-depleted nanodusty plasma

Abstract

A dust density wave field is observed in a cloud of nanodust particles confined in a radio frequency plasma. Simultaneous measurements of the dust properties, grain size and density, as well as the wave parameters, frequency and wave number, allow for an estimate of the ion density, ion drift velocity, and the dust charge using a hybrid model for the wave dispersion. It appears that the charge on the dust grains in the cloud is drastically reduced to tens of elementary charges compared with isolated dust particles in a plasma. The charge is much higher at the cloud's periphery, i.e., towards the void in the plasma center and also towards the outer edge of the cloud.