Forces acting on a coulomb crystal of microparticles in plasma

An equilibrium two-layer structure of charged microparticles in the near-electrode layer of a radio-frequency discharge was simulated numerically using the Monte Carlo method. Depending on gas pressure, the microparticles either move chaotically or form a multilayer structure with a hexagonal lattice in a horizontal plane. Based on the experiment, a mechanism is proposed that describes the unusual structure of a plasma crystal in which particles of the lower layer are located in the vertical direction strictly under the particles of the upper layer and form vertical columns. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 39, No. 6, pp. 8–15, November–December, 1998.