First page Back Continue Last page Summary Graphics
Adding Dust?
Weve discovered that levitating dust is still a black art, and we are still in the dark.
Weve tried 3 micron SiO2, Xerox toner (carbon polymer) without success. Our ionization method (which others have used) was plasma arcing. However, our system runs hot, fusing the dust.
We are modifying the experiment to add a UV light source, as a gentler ionization technique.
We emphasize that our approach is unsophisticated and LOTS (Lowes-off-the-shelf). One shouldnt conclude that a better organized effort wouldnt be successful.
Notes:
Well we were unsuccessful with our initial attempts to levitate dust into our DC glow discharge plasma. We basically used the same parameters as Ed Thomas successful experiment at Auburn University, with the addition of a magnet. However, we concluded that the plasma discharge we obtained was much hotter than that at Auburn, necessitating a different levitation technique. We think an UV lamp will provide a more gentle ionization technique that will be more successful than the plasma arcing method we had been using. The Aluminum dust generation of Yokota is also interesting one to try, since Al is a conductive dust.