Modified Paul trap geometry for microplasmas

The physics and applications of strongly coupled plasmas levitated in electrodynamic traps

“…The drops assemble into a Coulomb structure under SATP conditions. To confine charged particles of silicon carbide (SiC) and alumina (Al 2 O 3 ), classical quadrupole traps [175,176,177] and multi-electrode traps consisting of 8, 12 or 16 cylindrical brass electrodes (with 3 or 4 mm diameter) can be used [178,179]. Experiments confirm that a 12 electrode trap geometry yields to higher stability and smaller amplitude of oscillation of the levitated microparticles.…”

“…Further on we will shortly present MEITs and the physics associated to them [258]. MEITs have demonstrated to be versatile instruments, that are suited to characterize the physico-chemical properties of single charged particles with dimensions ranging between 100 nm ÷100 µm, such as aerosols [90,327,328], liquid droplets [193,194,329], solid particles [57,58,175,330], nanoparticles [331], and even microorganisms [332] or DNA segments [309]. Stable 2D and Polydisperse Al 2 O 3 particles are used in the experiments described in [333].…”

“…may be classified in two main categories: (a) those that require large populations of particles such as cloud chambers [552,553], and methods that isolate individual particles [43,99,299,554] such as EDB [91,329], optical tweezers [67,520], acoustic levitation [89,166], etc. Single-particle studies avoid population effects, by containing the particles in a very well defined region of space under conditions of minimal perturbation [56,57,58,175,176,554].…”

“…As a rule when studying light scattering, photoemission from a particle surface, processes of evaporation and condensation of a drop, or chemical reactions with a participation of solid particles [9,99,175,554], one preliminary charged particle has to be placed in the trap. Particle confinement is achieved at low gas pressures within the trap.…”