AUTHOR=Couëdel Lénaïc 

TITLE=Temporal dusty plasma afterglow: A review

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physics

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2022.1015603

DOI=10.3389/fphy.2022.1015603

ISSN=2296-424X

ABSTRACT=In complex plasmas, dust particles are charged through their interactions with the electrons and
the ions of the surrounding plasma. In low-temperature laboratory plasmas, dust particles most
commonly acquire a negative charge. In particular, in a laboratory glow-discharge plasma, the
typical charge for a micrometer-size grain generally attains a few thousands of electronic charges.
Under stable discharge conditions, this large negative charge is relatively well characterised.
However for unsteady discharge conditions, the charge can differ and even fluctuate. In particular,
when the power source of the discharge is turned off, the charged species of the plasma diffuse
away and recombine into neutral species: this is a temporal afterglow. When dust particles
are present inside temporal afterglow, the diffusion of charged species and the plasma decay
dynamics will be affected. Moreover, the dust particle charge will also evolve during the afterglow
period. In the late afterglow, dust particles are known to keep residual charges. The value of these
residual charges strongly depends on the ambipolar-to-free diffusion transition. In addition, the
presence of a dc electric field, causing ions to drift through the neutral gas, has a strong influence
on the final dust particle residual charges eventually leading to large positive residual charges. In
this review article, the dynamics of temporal afterglow complex plasma is discussed. Experimental
results and current theoretical model are presented. The basics of temporal afterglow modelling
are also given.