Instabilities during the growth of dust successive generations in silane-based plasmas

Dust growth in silane-based plasmas is known to be a cyclic phenomenon as long as silane is provided. This continuous dust growth leads to an unstable behavior of the complex plasma, characterized by well-defined instabilities. In this paper, a complete study of these instabilities is presented. The electrical analysis is corroborated by an optical one, and high speed video imaging is used to get an insight in the dust cloud behavior. A possible cause of this instability phenomenon is also discussed. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.2998835]