Surface Processes of Dust Particles in Low Pressure Plasmas

This paper presents several aspects of applied dusty plasma research.New applications of dust particles are emerging; there is growing demand for particles with special properties, and for particle-seeded composite materials.Low-pressure plasmas o¡er a unique possibility of con¢nement, control and ¢ne tailoring of particle properties.The role of low-pressure technology in surface modi¢cation (coating) of dust grains is discussed and illustrated with examples.Fundamental research related to industrial particle treatment aims at the understanding the surface chemistry of processing.More speci¢cally, the nature of plasma-particle interactions must be resolved.Heat exchange and particle temperature, discussed in this paper, are of major interest in the applied dusty plasma studies.