Emission and accretion of electrons by negatively charged dust particles in a plasma

Taking into account the image force on the electron and Debye shielding an expression for the reduction in the work function for a spherical metallic particle in a dusty plasma on account of the negative charge on the surface has been derived. The dependence of the reduction of the work function on the charge Oil the particle and Debye radius has been tabulated. The effect of this reduction on the thermionic and photoelectric emission and accretion of electrons by the particle has been discussed. As an interesting application of the work, the observed enhancement of the photoelectric emission from individual micron size grains with increasingly negative surface potential has been explained: the grains were selected from samples of dust collected in the Apollo-17 and Luna-24 missions. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.