Cluster Rotation Experiments at Flinders University
For the next 6 weeks, we will be heading to Flinders University of South Australia in Adelaide to perform experiments on dust cluster rotation in an axial magnetic field. This will be a great opportunity for the only two complex plasma laboratory groups in Australia to work in collaboration.
Historically, Flinders University was the first experimental group which initiated the study of complex plasma in Australia since 1997. The group was led by Dr. Leon Mitchell, with his two PhD students Nathan Prior and Felix Cheung. The group had performed experiments in the dynamics of dust particles such as vortex motion, convection cell, particle oscillation and cluster rotation. The apparatus used was built by Nathan Prior and it is a inductively coupled rf plasma system.
Later on in 2000, Prof. Brian James of the University of Sydney has taken interests in the study of complex plasma. After his visit to Adelaide, together with Dr. Alex Samarian and his student William Tsang, the second experimental complex plasma apparatus was built at Sydney. The apparatus is a capactively coupled rf plasma system.
Inevitably, in the year 2001, after Felix went to the University of Sydney to continue his PhD degree, the collaboration between Adelaide and Sydney took place.
Fig.1. There are two sites in Australia which does research in complex plasma.
One is the University of Sydney and the other one is the Flinders University
of South Australia in Adelaide.
Fig.2. Flinders University was actually the first experimental group which
initiated the study of complex plasma in Australia since 1997.
14/03/2003
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