Laser heating of finite two-dimensional dust clusters: A. Experiments

Laser manipulation allows to control the kinetic particle temperature in dusty plasmas. Different methods of laser heating for plasma crystals are benchmarked experimentally. The methods are analyzed with respect to homogeneity and isotropy in a spatial, temporal, and statistical sense. It is shown that it is possible to achieve particle dynamics very close to thermal equilibrium and that laser heating methods allow for a detailed study of phase transitions in finite size systems. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3677356]