Vertical pairing of identical particles suspended in the plasma sheath.
It is shown experimentally that vertical pairing of two identical microspheres suspended in the sheath of a radio-frequency (rf) discharge at low gas pressures (a few Pa) appears at a well-defined instability threshold of the rf power. The transition is reversible, but with significant hysteresis on the second stage. A simple model which uses measured microsphere resonance frequencies and takes into account, in addition to the Coulomb interaction between negatively charged microspheres, their interaction with positive-ion-wake charges, seems to explain the instability threshold quite well.
Steinberg
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V
Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, D-85740 Garching, Germany.
Sütterlin
R
R
Ivlev
A V
AV
Morfill
G
G