Impact of surface properties on the dust grain charging

Our experiment is based on an 3D electrodynamic trap. We caught a single dust grain for several days inside the vacuum vessel and exposed it to the electron/ion beam and studied charging/discharging processes. We have chosen spherically shaped melamine formaldehyde resin grains of a diameter 2.35 μm either with a clean surface or covered with a thin nickel film. An advantage of these samples is that the properties of bulk and surface materials are completely different. The effect of a surface modification was studied for ion and electron field emissions. We determined field intensities needed for significant emission currents as well as effective work functions for charged dust grains of particular material.