The basic features of dusty plasmas, particularly basic characteristics of dust in a plasma, and typical dusty plasma parameters for different space and laboratory plasma conditions, are presented. The complexity and the diversity of the field of dusty plasma physics are briefly discussed. Theoretical and experimental discoveries of linear and nonlinear features of waves, particularly dust-ion-...

We describe a rotating-drum dust-dispersal device, which we have used, in conjunction with an existing Q machine, to produce extended, steady state, magnetized plasma columns. The dusty plasma device (DPD) is to be used for the investigation of waves in dusty plasmas and of other plasma/dust aspects. The device is capable of generating dusty plasmas in which as much as -90% of the negative char...

As the data from space missions and laboratories improve, a research domain combining plasmas and charged dust is gaining in prominence. Our solar system provides many natural laboratories such as planetary rings, comet comae and tails, ejecta clouds around moons and asteroids, and Earth’s noctilucent clouds for which to closely study plasma-embedded cosmic dust. One natural laboratory to study...

A dusty plasma is an ionized gas containing dust particles, with sizes ranging from tens of nanometers to hundreds of microns. The interaction of the dust particles with the plasma and ambient environment results in a charging of the dust grains. This Chapter summarizes our basic knowledge of dusty plasmas with applications in space, industry and the laboratory. The Introduction (Section 1) pro...

The dusty plasma liquid formed by micro-meter sized particles negatively charged and suspended in a low pressure discharge background is a good candidate to study the generic spatio-temporal dynamical behaviors at the kinetic level through direct optical video-microscopy, because of the sub-mm interparticle spacing and the slow time scale. In this paper, starting from the basic picture of the a...

A dusty plasma system containing Boltzmann-distributed electrons, non-thermal ions, and mobile charge fluctuating negative dust has been considered. The nonlinear propagation of the dust-acoustic (DA) waves in such a dusty plasma has been investigated by employing the reductive perturbation method. It has been found that the dust charge fluctuation is a source of dissipation, and is responsible...

Charging currents of electrons and ions to a spherical dust grain in a uniform magnetized dusty plasma have been examined. It is found that the external magnetic field reduces the charging currents, thereby decreasing the dust charge fluctuation damping of a low-frequency electrostatic wave in a dusty plasma.