Relationship Between the DC Bias and the Debye Length in a Complex Plasma

The levitation height of a dust-particle layer within an RF discharge plasma sheath is known to be related to the dc bias, the background pressure, and the Debye length. In this paper, a new experimental technique for measurement of the Debye length is introduced. This technique is based on the relationship between an externally applied dc bias and the particle levitation height and shows that under appropriate conditions, the addition of an externally applied dc bias provides a mechanism for the evaluation of the Debye length. When compared with existing techniques, this new method appears to be simpler to implement in some cases