The de-agglomeration and dispersion of small dust particles—Principles and applications

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Abstract
A mechanism for the generation of dust dispersions consisting of single micrometer‐sized particles in a low pressure gas is discussed. The particles are de‐agglomerated and dispersed by injecting a dust sample (powder) together with a small amount of an arbitrary type of gas into a modified turbomolecular pump. The discussed sample release mechanism/dust disperser offers a wide range of possible gas and particle parameters, suitable for different kinds of experiments. We present two applications of our de‐agglomeration mechanism. In the first experiment, homogeneous dust clouds were produced under microgravity conditions, and the Brownian motion of the single dust grains was studied. The second application is a matrix isolation technique for the spectroscopical investigation of single dust particles.

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