1. Probing the Plasma Sheath by the Continuous Mass Loss of Microparticles.
- Author
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Carstensen, Jan, Haase, Fabian, Jung, Hendrik, Tadsen, Benjamin, Groth, Sebastian, Greiner, Franko, and Piel, Alexander
- Subjects
PLASMA physics ,PLASMA sheaths ,FRICTION ,PARTICLES ,RADIO frequency ,ELECTRIC fields - Abstract
A novel approach of using microparticles as probes for the sheath structure of radio-frequency discharges is presented. Starting with a heavy (large) particle confined deep in the plasma sheath, the ambient plasma causes a continuous mass loss, which increases the levitation height of the particle. It is shown that this process can be precisely monitored with the phase-resolved resonance method, which allows probing the force balance of the particle with high spatial resolution. The resulting force profile is in reasonable agreement with recent sheath models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2013
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