Ordered dusty structures in the plasma of an RF electrodeless gas discharge

Results are presented from the experimental studies and numerical simulatio ns of the behavior of dust grains in the plasma of an inductive RF discharg e. The experiments were carried out with neon at a pressure of 25-500 Pa an d with 1.87-mu m melamine formaldehyde grains. The discharge was excited by a ring inductor supplied from a generator operating at a 100-MHz frequency . The effective dust-grain interaction potential used in numerical simulati ons involved the spatial dependence of the grain charge on the plasma float ing potential, grain-interaction anisotropy resulting from the focusing of the drift ion current by the negatively charged grains, and specific featur es of the shielding of the dust grains by the plasma electrons and ions rec ombining both in the plasma bulk and on the grain surface. The results of M onte Carlo simulations show that the dust grains form specific filament str uctures observed experimentally in the plasma of an inductive electrodeless discharge. (C) 2000 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".