Abstract
Dust clusters of about 50–1000 particles have been confined near the sheath region of a gaseous radio-frequency plasma discharge. These compact clusters exhibit a vortex motion which has been reconstructed in full three dimensions from stereoscopy. Smaller clusters are found to show a competition between solid-like cluster structure and vortex motion, whereas larger clusters feature very pronounced vortices. From the three-dimensional analysis, the dust flow field has been found to be nearly incompressible. The vortices in all observed clusters are essentially poloidal. The dependence of the vorticity on the cluster size is discussed. Finally, the vortex motion has been quantitatively attributed to radial gradients of the ion drag force.
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