尘埃等离子体物理是近十年里等离子体学科中一个活跃的分支领域之一,带电尘埃广泛存在于空间等离子体、实验室聚变装置、低温等离子体工业应用等众多小同的环境中,并且呈现出相同或相似的性质.这是一种部分或完全电离的等离子体,其基本成分除了电子和离子外,还有(通常)带负电的、且电荷不是常数的微粒.带电颗粒有着与电予和离子完全不同的动力学行为,其与等离子体的相互作用呈现出许多新的物理现象.文章介绍了尘埃等离子体物理的简要发展历史、基本性质和主要研究方向以及最近一些热点问题.
The physics of dusty plasmas has been an active branch of plasma science during the past decade. Charged dust exists widely in such diverse environments as space plasmas, laboratory fusion devices, and lowtemperature plasma applications in industry. Nevertheless, they exhibit the same or similar characteristics. Dusty plasma is defined as partially or fully ionized plasma consisting of, besides electrons and ions, (usually) negatively charged micro-particles with variable charges. The grains have completely different dynamic behaviours compared with electrons and ions. New phenomena emerge as the result of grain - plasma interactions. This paper describes the basic properties of dusty as well as the history and recent topics of interest in their physics.