BEHAVIOUR OF THE MASS-TRANSFER EVOLUTION FUNCTION IN QUASI-2 D SYSTEMS IN DUSTY PLASMA OF RF-DISCHARGES

Introduction. The dusty plasma is an ionized gas that contains micron-sized particles of solid matter. This type of plasma is ubiquitous in nature (in space, in planetary atmospheres, etc.) and often appears in a number of technological processes [1, 2]. Laboratory dusty plasma is a good experimental model for studying the non-ideal systems and for testing the existing empirical and numerical results, because, owing to their size, dust particles may be observed via the video camera. The diffusion is the main mass-transfer process that defines the dissipation in the systems and their physical characteristics (the nature of interaction potentials, the phase state, the conditions for formation of instabilities, etc.). A study of this process for dusty plasma is of great interest [1-7]. The present work is devoted to the investigation of mass-transfer processes in quasi-two-dimensional (2d-) systems consisting of several dust layers (or a single one) that are usually observed in plasma of RFdischarge. Basic equations. In diffusion measurements, the ratio of mean square displacement, <∆l>, to the observation time t is usually calculated. In the 2dcase, the diffusion constant can be obtained from the relationship D = ( ) t D t ∞ → lim , where [7]