The observation is presented of naturally occurring pairing of particles and their cooperative drift in a two-dimensional plasma crystal. A single layer of plastic microspheres was suspended in the plasma sheath of a capacitively coupled rf discharge
in argon at a low pressure of 1 Pa. The particle dynamics were studied by combining the top-view and side-view imaging of the suspension. Cross analysis of the particle trajectories allowed us to identify naturally occurring metastable pairs of particles. The lifetime of pairs was long enough for their reliable identification.
Experiments to explore stability conditions and topology of a dense microparticle cloud supported against gravity by a gas flow were carried out. By using a nozzle shaped glass insert within the glass tube of a dc discharge plasma chamber a weakly io
nized gas flow through a de Laval nozzle was produced. The experiments were performed using neon gas at a pressure of 100 Pa and melamine-formaldehyde particles with a diameter of 3.43 {mu}m. The capturing and stable global confining of the particles behind the nozzle in the plasma were demonstrated. The particles inside the cloud behaved as a single convection cell inhomogeneously structured along the nozzle axis in a tube-like manner. The pulsed acceleration localized in the very head of the cloud mediated by collective plasma-particle interactions and the resulting wave pattern were studied in detail.
