Speaker
Description
Experiments on strongly coupled dusty plasmas provide unique access to the microscopic details of macroscopic condensed matter processes. Since the early years of this field, the application to hydrodynamic processes has been one of the main motivations. In most cases, however, the complexity of the experiments prevented the drawing of general conclusions. In our experiment, using the control provided by a plane-parallel radio frequency (RF) discharge, two metal discs are used to form an electrostatic potential channel. The flow of the electrically charged dust particles through the channel was induced by indirect laser manipulation, which is essential to keep the external effects acting on the particles under control. By adjusting the argon gas pressure and RF power, the channel was tuned to allow the formation of single or multiple lanes of passing dust particles. We use this system to address fundamental details of microfluidic flows, such as particle acceleration and deceleration, lane formation and ordering in the channel, etc.
