THE DE-AGGLOMERATION AND DISPERSION OF SMALL DUST PARTICLES - PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS

A mechanism for the generation of dust dispersions consisting of singl e micrometer-sized particles in a low pressure gas is discussed, The p articles are de-agglomerated and dispersed by injecting a dust sample (powder) together with a small amount of an arbitrary type of gas into a modified turbomolecular pump. The discussed sample release mechanis m/dust disperser offers a wide range of possible gas and particle para meters, suitable for different kinds of experiments. We present two ap plications of our de-agglomeration mechanism. In the first experiment, homogeneous dust clouds were produced under microgravity conditions, and the Brownian motion of the single dust grains was studied. The sec ond application is a matrix isolation technique for the spectroscopica l investigation of single dust particles. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.