DISCHARGING OF DUST PARTICLES OF DIFFERENT SIZES IN AN ARGON AFTERGLOW PLASMA

The dust charge distribution function (DCDF) in an argon plasma afterglow is obtained by solving numerically the master equation describing dust discharging as a one-step stochastic process. The calculated DCDFs are compared with Gaussian distributions, and it is found that the dust charge distribution functions can be approximated quite well by the latter ones for different external conditions. It is found how the DCDF, mean dust charge, variance and charging time depend on dust size. For late afterglow times, it is also analyzed how the emission of electrons in the collisions of excited argon atoms with dust particles affects the DCDF. It is shown that the emission effect is more essential for larger nanoparticles than for smaller ones.

Automated summary

In this study, the dust charge distribution function (DCDF) in an argon plasma afterglow is obtained by numerically solving the master equation as a one-step stochastic process for dust discharging. The calculated DCDFs are approximated well by Gaussian distributions under different external conditions. The dependence of DCDF, mean dust charge, variance, and charging time on dust size is investigated. Furthermore, the impact of electron emission from collisions between excited argon atoms and dust particles on the DCDF is analyzed, showing that the emission effect is more significant for larger nanoparticles.