Skeletal dendritic structure of dust microparticles and of their agglomerates in tokamak T-10

Abstract

The dendritic skeletons are found in submicron dust particles contained in various types of dust deposit in tokamak T-10. These skeletons are composed of few-several nanometers thick fibers and are partly/fully embedded in an amorphous component. The agglomerates of visually separate particles (VSPs) are shown to possess a common dendritic skeleton with the distribution of amorphous component being peaked around basic blocks of the dendrite to form the VSPs. The dendricity of above skeletons is compatible with a hypothetical streamer-like mechanism of assembling a skeleton from nanotubular blocks.