Tuesday, May 8, 2007, 11am - 12pm, MDEA

Dust in plasmas:
Evolution of a scientific frontier and its technological implications

Jeff Wang

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Abstract

The ubiquitous presence of dust in interstellar plasmas was recognized in the 1930’s when dust was found to obscure star light. Laboratory study of dust in plasma, usually known as ‘dusty plasma’, was born in the information age, when dust was first observed in plasmas for semiconductor processing, posing a threat to Moore’s law. The major milestones of the dusty plasma research include the discovery of dust crystals and dust acoustic waves. Our team has pursued dust research outside the dusty plasma regime, motivated by scientific and technological challenges, such as the need to understand astrophysical phenomena and to harvest magnetic fusion energy. Two laboratory experiments will be described in the talk. The first experiment examined the dust interactions with plasma flows. The second experiment demonstrated dust acceleration to hypervelocities. Technological implications of our research, its relevance to advanced propulsion in particular, will be discussed.