Laser Heating of Particles and Phase Transitions in Dusty Plasmas

Abstract

Experiments on heating and melting of 2D finite dust clusters are performed using random laser excitation of the dust particles by a rapidly moving laser beam. The achievable dust temperatures scale with the square of the laser power. The heating process is described for different dust clusters under various plasma and cluster conditions Laser‐driven phase transition are observed. From these experiments, a precise determination of the critical coupling parameter for solid‐fluid transition was possible.