Ionosphere Dusty Plasma in the Laboratory

We describe an experiment that creates dusty plasma with nanometer-sized particles that is similar to the ionosphere in which there are ``smoke'' particles from the ablation of meteors. The meteoritic smoke layer is global and extends from about 70-100 km. The smoke particles are thought to be the condensation nuclei for noctilucent clouds. The meteoritic particles descend into the polar stratosphere in the winter. A Zn vapor source is used to create a smoky gas of Zn particles that are up to tens of nanometers in size and these are seen both by laser scattering and by collecting them on a substrate viewed by electron microscope. A differential pumping scheme is used to introduce the particles into a hot-filament discharge plasma. Probe methods are used to search for charged nanometer-sized particles in decaying afterglow plasma.