Confinement of complex plasmas by dielectric walls under microgravity.

Dusty plasmas have been confined by glass walls in order to generate void-free particle structures under microgravity conditions. Different types of clouds establish in the cuvette in dependence on the rf power and dc bias applied to the multi-electrode system of the discharge device. The observations can be basically understood when applying standard force models to discharge simulation results. The various dust topologies are proposed to result from a change in the direction of the ion drag — inwards or outwards the cuvette gap. © 2005 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]