Dusty plasma – a laboratory for strong couplingONLINE ONLY

A typical plasma consists of electrons and ions. A dusty plasma adds a third macroscopic species, micrometer sized dust grains. These grains differ significantly from the electrons and ions: First, they are heavy, thus their dynamics are on a much slower time scale. Second, they are highly charged. 10.000 elementary charges and more are typical values. Linked with this high charge is a strong interaction of the dust particles with each other. Thus, liquid and crystalline structures are frequently observed. If these two properties are combined, the dust component in a plasma is a strongly coupled system with slow dynamics and thus ideally suited for experiments. But to what extend is this specific system really a model system for strong coupling? What can we learn from this system? This talk will briefly introduce you into the field of dusty plasma and finally give three recent experimental examples ranging from optics via basic thermodynamics to plasma surface interaction to answer this.