Dusty plasmas-a theoretical charge model and industrial applications

When dust grains occur in a plasma, they acquire an electric charge and represent another plasma component something like very massive ions with large charges that can vary with time. The electrons and ions are still there, but the dust alters and can even dominate the behaviour of the plasma. In order to understand the behaviour of the dust particles in plasmas one must model the grain charge, and to this end probe theory is used extensively. However,there are different approaches: firstly the Radial Motion theory developed by Alien, Boyd and Reynolds and secondly the Orbital Motion and Orbital Motion Limited (OML) approach of Mott-Smith and Langmuir on which the model is based.<
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