The Experimental Setup

The experiment is limited to the size range of a NanoCube of 10x10x15 cm. The whole mechanical structure and the electronics are placed inside of this small “cube”. The figure below shows the current design.

A 3D-Design-Model of the experiment.
​​

The sample chamber contains the glass spheres (shown in gray) and is shaken by voice coils below (obscured by the stepmotor). The cap, bottom and a lower wall section of this chamber are covered by the same glass spheres (not shown in the schematic drawing).

​
The inner glass sphere container.
​​

To ensure that charge separation only occurss due to same surface tribocharging, lowering the cap with a stepmotor reduces the volume inside the chamber. This limits the movement of the spheres to a small volume (with matching surfaces) and enables also to restart the experiment. The sample agglomeration is observed with a camera in transmitted LED-light configuration. The experiment is controlled via a Rasberry Pi Zero (in front of the stepmotor) and an electronic board. Higher power consumption and inrush peaks are buffered with a powerbank.

​
One of the power boards for the experiment.
​​

We are planing to record series of images which will be interpreted on the ground. This will give us information about the formation, structure and size of the clusters.

Gallery

​

​

​​