Energy-states of 1 & 1.5-D Dust Grain Chains in Complex (Dusty) Plasma*

Dusty plasmas provide a minimally-invasive method for determining the fundamental physics within a low-temperature plasma environment using data obtained from high frame-rate cameras. In this research, 8.89µ dust is confined within a glass box placed in a GEC RF reference cell to create 1 and 1.5-D chains of particles which are then exposed to a Verdi 532 nm CW LASER. It will be shown that this is a viable mechanism for probing both the energy states and phase-transitions of such structures while also mapping the fields and forces within the dusty plasma system.