Dusty plasmas

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 low-temperature 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.