Icy Hot Plasmas: Fluffy, Electrically Charged Ice Grains Reveal New Plasma Dynamics (IMAGE)
Caption
A team of researchers in the Bellan Plasma Lab at Caltech created a plasma in which electrons and positively charged ions exist between ultracold electrodes within a mostly neutral gas environment, injected water vapor, and then watched as tiny ice grains spontaneously formed. They studied the behavior of the grains using a camera with a long-distance microscope lens. The team was surprised to find that extremely "fluffy" grains developed under these conditions and grew into fractal shapes—branching, irregular structures that are self-similar at various scales.
Credit
Bellan Plasma Group/Caltech
Usage Restrictions
none
License
Original content