Industrial developments of scientific insights in dusty plasmas

In the last twelve years the research on dusty plasmas was at first required to understand the dust-induced problems in low-pressure plasma tools and surface processing technologies. Meanwhile, the research on physics and chemistry of dusty plasmas led to the discovery of a fascinating domain. The scientific knowledge acquired on dusty plasmas leads to new ideas for applications and the aim of this contribution is to present examples of such connections. An exhaustive review of the matter would be clearly impossible and only three aspects are emphasized. The first concerns plasmas where nanosized particles are grown and their use for deposition of thin films with new properties. The second concerns situations where a significant amount of dust is stored in a discharge, inducing high electron energies, with strong impact on plasma chemistries. The last one will concern the well-known confinement of dust particles by electrostatic sheaths and some examples of its actual or potential applications.