Over the last decade, dusty plasma research has sought to explore the physics of magnetized dusty plasmas. Due to the small charge-to-mass ratio of micron-sized dust grains, magnetic fields of B ! 1 T are needed to magnetize these particles. A peculiar phenomenon that occurs in capacitively coupled, glow discharge dusty plasmas at high magnetic fields that are perpendicular to the electrodes is the formation of stationary or mobile filamentary structures that are aligned along the magnetic field. In experiments, these filaments are found to form at a low neutral gas pressure, low applied radio frequency power, and a high magnetic field. This paper reports on new simulations of capacitively coupled plasmas at a high magnetic field for a configuration with a powered metal electrode and a grounded electrode with a dielectric barrier. It is shown that for this configuration, it is possible to form filamentary structures that appear in the electron density, potential, and light emission, which have properties that scale qualitatively with experiments. For these conditions, the dielectric strength of the boundary is most strongly correlated with the formation of the filaments. Implications of these observations and how they could be used to motivate future experiments are discussed.

The last decade has seen the development of new experimental devices to explore the physics of magnetized dusty plasmas. Because of the small charge-to-mass ratio of the charged microparticles, it is necessary to operate these experiments at high magnetic fields of several Tesla in order to observe the direct effect of the magnetic forces on the transport properties of the charged microparticles. While the study of magnetized dusty plasmas is still the ultimate goal, these experiments have also provided new opportunities to studies regimes of strongly magnetized, low temperature, laboratory plasmas that have not been extensively explored. Experiments show the formation of new types of self-and imposed-ordered structures that form in both the plasma and among the microparticles. This paper summarizes recent experimental observations of plasma filamentation (in the plasma) and will discuss possible connections to 'dust gridding' phenomena that are observed in the magnetized dusty plasma experiment device.

Filamentary structures in low-pressure, low-temperature plasmas are produced when strong magnetic fields are applied parallel to the electric field defined by parallel electrodes. Filamentary structures are regions within the plasma that have distinct properties such as optical brightness and extend along the magnetic field lines. In our experiments, an argon, radio frequency discharge is exposed to a strong background magnetic field in the magnetized dusty plasma experiment at Auburn University. Different forms of filamentary structures emerge in the plasma such as columns, target, or spiral-like structures. To investigate the origin and the characteristics of these patterns, we have developed a three-dimensional fluid model that can reproduce the experimental observations which enables us to investigate the underlying mechanisms of the filamentation process.

In this paper, the formation of imposed patterns due to placing a wide wire mesh ('waffle' electrode) in the bulk of a strongly magnetized (B 1 T) plasma is investigated both experimentally and numerically. A new double head electrostatic probe was designed for the experiments that allows for measurements of the floating potential beneath the mesh in the magnetized plasma. The measurements using this probe revealed that due to the presence of the 'waffle' electrode in the bulk of the magnetized plasma, an organized pattern appears in the plasma potential. As a result of this imposed pattern, when dust particles were added to the experiments, they became trapped beneath the edges of the 'waffle' electrode. The effects of placing a wire mesh in the bulk of a magnetized plasma were further investigated using fluid and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. These simulations were able to qualitatively reproduce the experimental observations. The results of the simulations showed that the imposed patterns arise due to differences in the cross-field transport of the electrons and ions in the presence of magnetic field.

Growth of nanoparticles in plasmas is an emerging topic of research due to its numerous implications in industrial, and fusion plasmas applications. In this paper, effect of a magnetic field induced filaments on the growing nanoparticles and vice versa has been investigated. The experiment has been performed in a capacitive coupled radio-frequency Ar/C2H2 discharge. The magnetic field affect the plasma dynamics and confined it within the electrodes. At a very high magnetic field (B ≥ 1 T) a stationary or moving filamentary structures are formed between the electrodes that are aligned along the magnetic field. These filamentary structures are found to be suppressed during nanoparticle growth. A particle in cell simulation has been performed to understand the suppression of these filamentary structure.