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Phase Transition in Dust Clusters with

Different Charging Processes

Article in Contributions to Plasma Physics · September 2013

Impact Factor: 0.84 · DOI: 10.1002/ctpp.201200065

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Contrib. Plasma Phys. 53, No. 8, 605 – 612 (2013) / DOI 10.1002/ctpp.201200065

Phase Transition in Dust Clusters with Different Charging

Processes
H. Gueddaoui1 and M. Djebli∗2
1
Semi-Conductors and Dioxides Metallic Laboratory, Faculty of Physics U.S.T.H.B., 16079 Algiers, Algeria
2
Theoretical Physics Laboratory, Faculty of Physics U.S.T.H.B., 16079 Algiers, Algeria

Received 13 September 2012, revised 05 June 2013, accepted 15 July 2013

Published online 20 September 2013

Key words Coulomb crystal, charging processes, Monte Carlo method, shell structures, melting.
Random charging processes effects on ground-state configurations and phase transition of a finite system have
been investigated in terms of Hamiltonian system. The particles interact through a screened Yukawa poten-
tial and are confined by a two-dimensional parabolic potential. Numerical simulation was performed at low
temperature for charging processes by particles collection and by photoemission. Results show that the charge
fluctuation changes significantly the ground-state configurations only in the case of the photoemission charging
process and give rise to a change on the melting characteristics.


c 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

1 Introduction
Dusty plasmas are low-temperature ionized gases that contain particles of solid matter (dust particles) of size
ranging from nano to micro-m [1]. These particles, which are generated/immersed in the plasma, tend to ac-
quire an appreciable electric charge by collecting electrons and ions from the plasma background and sometimes
emitting electrons. When emission processes are unimportant, the equilibrium charge on the dust particles is
negative due to the higher temperature and mobility of electrons. On the other hand, when electron emission is
significant, the equilibrium charge is positive. Consequently, dust particles can acquire a huge charge leading to
the strongly coupled regime. To prevent Coulomb explosion a confinement electrostatic potential is used. This
potential also restricts the region of dust particles. Thus, particles can be arranged in regular positions and form
ordered structures (Coulomb structures) [2, 3]. The dust crystals are observed when the interaction energy of the
closest neighbors is larger than the thermal energy, i.e., the coupling parameter Γ >> Γc , Γc is a critical value
which depends on the space dimension [4, 5].
Many experiments and numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the ground-state as well as phase
transition in two-dimensional configurations, for both negatively and positively charged dust crystals [6]- [11].
Plasma with positive charge occurs in space where the charging is by photoemission due to solar radiation [12,13].
A Coulomb liquid crystal of positive dust has been observed in thermal plasma at 1 atm and ∼ 1700 − 2000 K.
In that experiment, the dust particle was reported to be charged positively by thermionic emission, as they were
heated by immersion in a flame of gas [14].
The main characteristic of dusty plasma is the charge fluctuation. The charge of the dust particles fluctuated for
two reasons; one due to turbulence or spatial variations of plasma parameters around dust particles (electron and
ion temperatures and densities, currents, etc....). The other charge fluctuation is attributed to the discrete nature
of charge carriers. Electrons and ions are absorbed (or emitted) from the particle surface at random times. For
this reason, the charge fluctuates, even in a steady state uniform plasma. The latter fluctuations, is the domi-
nant charging aspect in strongly coupled dusty plasma [15–17]. A number of studies on the properties of charge
fluctuation have been published [18, 19]. Using Monte Carlo method, the charge fluctuation is found to be an
additional heating source [20]. As a result, the melting can be considerably affected by random collection of
electrons and ions.
In this paper, the effect of charging process on the ground-state configurations and phase transition is studied
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail: mdjebli@usthb.dz


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606 H. Gueddaoui and M. Djebli: Phase transition

numerically using Monte Carlo simulation method in the frame work of Hamiltonian Systems. Ground-state
configurations and melting temperature of plasmas systems determined, based on the relative interpaticle dis-
tance urel (s) calculation, are found to change with the plasma background component and parameters.

2 Modeling
A finite system of N monodisperse spherical dust particles interacting through a screened Yukawa potential is
considered. At equilibrium, the particles are equally charged, with the same charge qo = eZ0 , and confined by a
two dimensional electrostatic parabolic potential.
1
Vc = mωo2 r2 , (1)
2
where m is the dust mass, ωo is the confinement potential frequency and r is the particle distance measured
from the center of the confinement potential. The dust charge can be a function of space coordinates or under
certain conditions the inter-particles interaction becomes nonreciprocal. This non-reciprocity in plasmas usually
emerges in the presence of external fields which induce an ambient plasma flow with respect to the microparticle
and lead the system to be non-Hamiltonian. The system can be made reciprocal (Hamiltonian) by applying an ac
field instead of the DC field [21–23].
At low temperature the kinetic energy of dust particles can be neglected in comparison to the potential energy.
The system total energy is given by the Hamiltonian

N
1 e2 
N
e−|ri −rj |/λD
H= mωo2 ri2 + Zi Z j , (2)
i=1
2  j>i |ri − rj |

where  is the dielectric constant of the medium, Zi (Zj ) and ri (rj ) are the charge and the distance of ith (j th )
particle measured from the center of the confinement potential and λD is the Debye length.
The dimensionless form of Eq.(2) is obtained by the following normalization ( Ref. [24])
 → H/Eo , r → r/ro
H (3)

where Eo = (qo2 /)2/3 γ 1/3 and ro = (qo2 /)1/3 γ −1/3 . The constant γ represents the one particle confinement
energy γ = mωo2 /2. In reduced form the Hamiltonian of the system is re-written as follows


N 
N
e−κ|ri −rj |
 =
H ri2 + Zi Zj , (4)
i=1 j>i
|
ri − rj |

where κ
 is the dimensionless screening strength. Due to the random aspect of the charging process, the instanta-
neous charge on each particle is given by

Zil = Zo + Zil (5)

Eq.(5) means that, the charge carried by the ith particle fluctuates around its average (equilibrium) value Zo . In
order to include the charge fluctuation, the Hamiltonian of Eq.(4) has to be modified as follows
  
N N
ΔZ l
ΔZil e−κ|ri −rj |

H= 2
ri + 1+
j
1+ (6)
i=1 j>i
Zo Zo |
ri − rj |

The charge variation of the ith particle at the time step l is given by a recursive relation [16, 25]

ΔZil+1 = ΔZil + δZξ (1 − βΔt) (7)

The parameter ξ is

ξ = sin(2πχ1 ) −2log(χ2 ). (8)


c 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.cpp-journal.org
Contrib. Plasma Phys. 53, No. 8 (2013) / www.cpp-journal.org 607

Where χ1 , χ2 are random

√ numbers uniformly distributed in the interval (0, 1]. The variation of the random charge
fluctuation is δZ = νo Δt. This equation is important for studying the effect of random charge fluctuations on
the dynamic behavior of the macroscopic particles. It contains information on the random charge fluctuations,
as well as on the frequency ν0 , characterizing the plasma particles motion. ν0 is obtained from the equilibrium
condition when all currents entering (I− ) or leaving (I+ ) the dust surface are equal, i.e., the steady state regime
is reached, ν0 = 2I+ /e = 2I− /e. The parameter β of Eq.(7), characterizing the frequency of the random charge
fluctuation, is obtained from

β = −(1/e)∂I/∂Z |Z=Zo = ∂[I+ − I− ]/∂Z |Z=Zo (9)

β depends on the charging process and background plasma surrounding the dust particles. The effect of the
fluctuation is significant when the time step Δt < τc , where τc = 1/β is the characteristic time of charge
fluctuation. The simplest model that predicts the charge of the dust particle in the plasma is the Orbital Motion
limited probe theory (OML) developed by Mott-Smith and al [26]. The OML theory involves the discrete nature
of the charge carriers and supposes isolated dust particle. The charging currents are termed (orbit-limited) when
the condition a << λD << λmf p is fulfilled, knowing that a is the dust radius and λmf p is a collisional mean
free path between neutral gas and electrons or ions. At such case, the plasma currents can be calculated assuming
that the electrons and ions are collected when their collisionless orbits intersect the probe surface. Although, the
OML uses the assumption that electrons (ions) didn’t undergo collision before reaching the dust surface, it can
give correct results in commonly encountered conditions [27]
Currents corresponding to collections of Maxwellian electrons and ions, by a spherical dust are (Ref. [1, 15, 20]):
 1/2  
2 8Te Ze2
I− = −Ie = πa ene exp (10)
πme aTe
 1/2  
8Ti Ze2
I+ = Ii = πa2 eni 1− (11)
πmi aTi
me (mi ), ne (ni ) and Te (Ti ) being respectively, the electron (ion) mass, density and temperature. Using Eqs.(9),
(10) and (11), one finds
 1/2  
8Ti Te
β = πa2 ni 1+ (1 + α) (12)
πmi Ti

where α = Ze2 /aTe .

For positively charged dust by an ultraviolet radiation the charging current is given by [5]

Ipe = πa2 eJp Qab Yp e(−eφd /Tpe ) , (13)

where Jp is the photon flux, Qab ∼ 1 is the efficiency of the photon absorption, Yp = 1/2 is the yield of
photoelectrons, φd = eZ/a is the potential at the dust surface and Tpe is the average temperature of the emit-
ted electrons. Taking into account the quasi neutral condition at equilibrium, for the fluctuation frequency, the
following expression is obtained
   
νo Te
βpe = α 1 + (1 + α) /(1 + α) (14)
2Zo Tpe

3 Effect of charge fluctuation

For small particles with a few elementary charges, the discreteness of charge of electrons and ions and the
stochastic nature of the charging process can create notable charge fluctuations which can even result in short
periods Δt  ( ν1o , β) where particles are charged. In general, the magnitude of the fluctuation is of the order of
√
0.5 n, under experimental conditions, where n is the number of charge [28]. To simulate the charge fluctuations
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608 H. Gueddaoui and M. Djebli: Phase transition

accurately, we choose the time step Δt = τc /20. As usually, τc is the smallest time characterizing a system of
charged dust particles [τc << ωd−1 = (4πnd Zo2 e2 /md )−1/2 ] where nd and md are respectively, the dust density
and mass. This means that simulations with the fluctuating dust charge require much more computing time than
with fixed one. This is a reason why the 2D approch was used with a relatively small number of dust particles.
In previously work, numerical investigations on the charge fluctuation amplitude versus the fluctuation time
for Δt =τc /20, τc /50 and τc /100, showed that the maximum of the charge fluctuation amplitude corresponds
to Δt = τc /20 and there is no big difference between the others cases [18], for that reason we consider Δt
=τc /20 in simulations. In Fig.1 the charge fluctuation amplitude ΔZ is plotted as a function of the fluctuation
time period t. The typical parameters when the charging is by particles collection are: ni ∼ ne ∼ 108 cm−3 ,
me /mi = 1.0 × 10−4 , Te = 1 eV and Ti = 0.05 eV . For the photoemission process we have considered dusty
plasma with Tpe = 1 eV and an electron density ne = 107 cm−3 and a mass density ρ = 5g/cm3 . The friction
frequency was assumed to be equal to ν ∼25/a μm (s−1 ). This dependence corresponds to a presure P ∼ 0.2
Torr of a background gas Ar at room temperature. The work function W = 5 eV in the presence of a photon
flux Jp = 1.25 × 1025 P hotons/m2 s−1 (Refs. [13, 25]). The charge fluctuations depend on the particle size, it
was found that, fluctuations on small particles are important [29]. Thus, to study the effect of charging processes
on the dust charge, by particle collection and by photoemission, two dust particles’ radii, a=5 and 25 μm and
equilibrium charges Zo of 103 and 1.7 × 104 are used.
150 3 250
Z =10 , a=5μm
o Z =103, a=25μm
o
α=0.29 200
α=0.057
100
150
100
ΔZ

ΔZ

50
50

0 0
50
50 100
0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150
Simulation time a) Simulation time b)
Fig. 1 Charge fluctuation amplitude ΔZ vs time step for: (◦) Particles collection and () Photoemission charging processes
with Zo =103 . (a) a = 5 μm and (b) a = 25 μm.

140 250
Z =1.7x104, a=5μm Z =1.7x104, a=25μm
o o
120
α=4.89 200 α=0.98
100

80 150

60
100
ΔZ

ΔZ

40
50
20

0 0

20
50
40

60 100
0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150
Simulation time a) Simulation time b)
4
Fig. 2 The same as Fig. 1 but with Zo =1.7 × 10 .

A numerical calculation shows that α depends on the plasma parameters, for Zo = 103 it is around 0.29,
0.057 for a = 5 μm and a = 25 μm, respectively. With Zo =1.7 × 104 , α is 4.89 and 0.98 for a = 5 μm
and a = 25 μm. For small dust radius (a = 5μm) and moderate equilibrium charge (Zo = 103 ), the random
charge amplitude is important in the case of a photoemission charging process (Fig.1 a). Increasing the dust
radius gives a higher charge fluctuation amplitude which is about 200 while it corresponds to ΔZ ∼ 100 with
particles collection (Fig.1 b). With increasing the dust radius of the same nature, the dust surface becomes subject
to photon flux and therefore, emission of electrons becomes important. However, the increasing of the dust radius
enhances the probability of ions and electrons to have direct collisions with dust. The characteristic frequency β,
predicted by using Eqs.(12) and (14), shows strongly variations with the charging process. For Zo = 103 and
a = 5 μm, β is 3.14 × 108 (s−1 ) and 3.46 × 106 (s−1 ) for particles collection and photoemission, respectively.
For a = 25 μm, β is 6.5 × 109 (s−1 ) and 1.55 × 107 (s−1 ) under particles collection and photoemission charging
processes. Taking the dust equilibrium charge Zo = 1.7 × 104 , and the dust radius a = 5 μm (Fig.2 a) the
random charge fluctuation in case of particles collection and photoemission is ∼ 150. For a = 25 μm (Fig.2

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Contrib. Plasma Phys. 53, No. 8 (2013) / www.cpp-journal.org 609

b) the random charge fluctuation amplitude is ∼ 200 with particles collection and 240 with photoemission. The
difference between the two cases is not significant. Obtained values of β are smaller in case of photoemission
charging process β is ∼ 107 (s−1 ) compared to ∼ 1010 (s−1 ) under particles collection. Under the previous con-
ditions, the frequency of the charge fluctuation β is less important, which explains the fast deviation of the dust
random charge fluctutions. We note that the charge fluctuation time scale is very small that one would expect no
effects on heavy particles. Numerical simulation is conducted for the case that the friction frequency ν << β
in the presence of Ar gas. Therefore, the effect of charge fluctuation is more significant as the dust equilibrium
charge is more important or as the inert presure is lower to neglect the friction effect [18].
In the strongly coupled regime, when a small number of dust particles are radially confined by a parabolic poten-
tial trap, they are levitated in monolayer regular clusters, and self-organized in concentric shells (N1 , N2 , ..Ni , ...)
where Ni is the number of particles per shell. The arrangement of particles between different shells and the num-
ber of particles in each shell depends on different parameters. Following certain rules to fill shells with particles,
the dust structures are equivalents to the Mendeleev-type table [24]. To find the ground-state configurations of
dust particles, a numerical simulation is performed using Monte Carlo simulation based on the standard Metropo-
lis algorithm. To increase the accuracy of the found of energy value that corresponds to a global minimum in the
system, the code is supplemented with the Newton method [11] [30]. Firstly, the code is checked by considering
the absence of charge fluctuation (ΔZil = 0). Once the code is tested, we include the effect of charge fluctuation,
which is assumed to be uncorrelated. The random aspect is modeled by a Gaussian random variable, so at each
simulation step the increment in the charge is given by Eq.(7). Initially charged dust particles are located in
random positions in the confinement region. Then, after 104 − 105 Monte Carlo steps, the ground-state config-
urations of the dusty systems are reached and they are found to be corresponded to the arrangements (4, 9, 13)
and (3, 9, 14, 14) for N = 26 and N = 40, respectively. This findings are similar to those of Ref. [31].
Under particles collection the ground state configuration is (2, 8, 14, 16) for N = 40 and (2, 8, 13, 17) for
photoemission charging. It is important, to note that the ground state configuration of N = 26 dust particles,
does not change with the charging processes. Structural phase transition from one crystalline state to another
in finite dust systems is produced by reducing the system energy. During this process the energy is stored in
the mutual electrostatic coupling. The stored energy causes instabilities of the dust particles oscillations due to
charge fluctuation and allows the system to exhibit different equilibrium structures [32]. The ground state con-
figuration is depending on the charging process under consideration, which is inherent to the plasma background
and experimental conditions. As the plasma background affects the interaction potential between dust particles, it
is expected that the configuration changes by the dominant charging processes. For the photoemission, the elec-
trons’ density around each dust increases and causes a stronger screening effect. Therefore, important changes on
the interaction potential of dust particles occur and lead to change the structure. However, in the case of particles
collection the presence of ions and neutral atoms cannot be ignored. The effect of one species is canceled by
the other species of opposite charge. Besides electrons (ions)-dust interactions, the background plasma may also
be subject to ion-electron interaction [33]. The screening effect will not be stronger in the presence of charge
fluctuation. Consequently, acquiring additional charged particles turns out as an additional heating source and
allows some particles to reach new arrangements.
Melting can be understood as a deterioration of the rigid crystal-like structure induced by temperature. In terms
of Monte Carlo trajectories, it is possible to interpret melting. The finite system preserves its structure if there is
no collection of trajectories of different dust particles. However, the system can exhibit structural or orientational
phase transition. Some dust particles found their space-coordinates or angle changed while the system keeps its
ordered structures. Phase transition of plasma crystals from an ordered, solid state to a fluid and gas-like state
have been observed when the gas pressure in the discharge is reduced. The dust temperature drastically increases
from essentially room temperature at high gas pressure to about 50 eV at low gas pressure [34]. Numerical 2D
simulation performed by Ivlev al. , of a Yukawa system showed an increase of the thermal energy with the charge
gradient. This dust heating is responsible for the melting of plasmas crystals [35]. The solid-liquid transition can
be investigated by different quantities, such as free energy differences, order parameter, specific heat, structure
factors and the particle position fluctuations normalized to the inter-particle distance [6, 36]. In this work, the
behavior of the confined system with heating temperature is investigated for the following background plasma:
equilibrium charge Zo = 103 and a = 25 μm. Dust systems were heated up, the temperature was increased grad-
ually by steps of δT /To ∼ 10−6 and equilibrated at the new temperature to obtain the minimum energy. The
temperature is normalized by To = Eo kB , kB is the Boltzmann constant. For structural properties of N = 26 and
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c 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
610 H. Gueddaoui and M. Djebli: Phase transition

50 finite systems, we used the relative interparticle distance fluctuations urel (s) [37–40]

2 
N
< rij2 >
urel (s) = −1 (15)
N (N − 1) < rij >2
1≤i<j

Where rij = ri − rj is the distance between two particles i and j, N is the dust number and... denotes thermal
averaging. The relative interpaticle distance fluctuations are averaged over sub-interval s which varies from 1 to
K of lenght M = 1000 of the hole simulation (the full lenght Monte Carlo simulation is L = K.M ). At zero
temperature. The quantity urel (s) gives us information about the average amplitude of the oscillating motion of
the particles around their equilibrium positions. The low value at low temperature is attributed to all particles
remaining at their local minimum positions during the whole simulation, since the total simulation time is smaller
than the correlation time of the particle positions. For critical temperature this quantity starts to increase, the jump
arises at that temperature where the simultation and correlation time will become similar [36, 39, 40]. In Fig.3
the relative interparticle distance fluctuations urel (s) is plotted versus normalized temperature. Here we provide
a comparison between the relative interparticle distance fluctuations when there is no charge fluctuation (Fig.3a)
and the case where the charging process by collection (Fig. 3b) and photoemission (Fig.3c).
0.06 0.02 0.03
ΔZji=0, N=26 Particles collection, N=26 Photoemission, N=26
0.015
<urel(s)>
<urel(s)>

<u (s)>
0.04 0.02
0.01

rel
0.02 0.01
0.005

0 0 0
1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
T/T T/T T/T
o x 10
-5
a) o
-5
x 10 b) o x 10
-5
c)
0.03 0.08 0.08
ΔZji=0, N=50 Particles collection, N=50 Photoemission, N=50
0.06 0.06
0.02
<urel(s)>

<urel(s)>

0.04 <u (s)> 0.04

rel
0.01
0.02 0.02

0 0 0
2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
T/T T/T T/T
o x 10
-5
e) o x 10
-5
f) o
-5
x 10 g)
Fig. 3 The relative interparticle distance fluctuations urel (s) versus normalized temperature for N = 26, (a), (b) and (c) are
without charge fluctuation, with particles collection and with photoemission, respectively. Figures (e), (f) and (g) correspond
to N = 50. The dust equilibrium charge is Z0 = 1.0 × 103 and a = 25μm.

Melting temperatures are estimited with an error ± ΔT /To ∼ 0.5 × 10−6 . The phase transition occurs
at T /To ∼ 1.9 × 10−5 in absence of charge fluctuation, the system number of particles is N = 26. Under
the effect of charging processes the phase transition occurs at T /To ∼ 2.3 × 10−5 (particles collection) and
T /To ∼ 1.5 × 10−5 ( photoemission). The dominant charging process in any dust systems governs the charged
dust cloud on each single dust particle. The inter-particles interaction is therefore, subject to a screening effect
which is modified by the nature and the number of light particles around each dust. Moreover, heating cannot
be explained only by changes of the plasma parameters with gas pressure. Mainly, such heating can also be
explained by the fact that particles attached on the dust transfer their momentum (kinetic energy) to the dust.
However, in the case of photoemission the dust is able to loose much more energy as the electron leave the dust
surface. So, this cannot also be the principal reason of the change on the dust temperature. In the present study,
we have neglected the contribution of kinetic energy in the Hamiltonian of the systems. The contribution of ki-
netic energy in low temperature may be neglected compared to the electrostatic interaction. For an accurate and
exact contribution of particles’ momentum transfer (electrons and ions) to the dust particles one has to perform
molecular dynamics simulation. It is worth to note that for small charge fluctuation amplitude, the velocity dis-
tribution keeps an isotropic Maxwellian form, and the use of Eqs.(10) and (11) is justified [41]. Results of Fig.3
is attributed to the fluctuation potential at the dust surface. Increasing the number of the particles to N = 50
gives melting temperature T /To = 2.7 × 10−5 , 5 × 10−6 and 4 × 10−6 , with constant charge, particles collec-
tion and photoemission, respectively. The lowest value corresponds to the charging process by photoemission.
Nevertheless, phase transition melting is not only due to the presence of binary interaction between dust particles
but also a rearrangement of particles’ distribution which leads to change density distribution between charged
particles, initially having the same equilibrium charge. Lower melting temperature means that the system is

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Contrib. Plasma Phys. 53, No. 8 (2013) / www.cpp-journal.org 611

weakly coupled. Thus, increasing the systems’ number of particles or increasing the charge on each dust particle
with the same confinement potential, increases the risk of Coulomb explosion. This is overtaken with an efficient
screening effect which cannot be provided with density cloud of opposite sign around each dust particle. For
photoemission, where the dominant emitted species are electrons, the screening may be more important.

4 Conclusion
Monte Carlo simulation has been performed for strongly coupled Coulomb system of dust particles with a finite
small number. Different charging processes namely particles collection and photoemission, which cause the
random fluctuation of the charge have been investigated. The system exhibits a shell structure which turns out to
change when the random charge fluctuation is considered. Dependence of the system ground state configuration
on the charging process as well as the dust equilibrium charge is pointed out. Important changes are induced by
photoemission, where the density of charged particles around each dust is strongly altered. The phase transition
is also investigated and the melting temperature obtained using the relative interparticle distance fluctuations
urel (s), which was found mainly depending on the amplitude of the charge fluctuation ΔZ. For photoemission
charging process the melting temperature is reduced due to the additional heating source where the charging
process not only heats up the dust particles but changes the interaction between dust particles. In case of particles
collection charging process a shift of the melting temperature towards the higher temperatures, is observed, such
behavior is due to the amplitude of charge fluctuation decrease.

Acknowledgements The authors thank the anonymous refere for the constructive suggestions and remarks. One of the
authors HG acknowledges Doctor Hauke Thomsen for assistance to implement the relative interparticle distance fluctuations
IDF in Monte Carlo code.

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