Time-resolved energy spectrum of the ion beam generated in the plasma focus
A major feature of plasma focus devices in the acceleration of deuterons to energy values of several MeV with an externally applied voltage of only 15 kV on the electrodes. A plasma focus machine (49 ..mu..f, 15 kV, 5.5 kJ) was built and operated in six different pressure regimes (8-3 Torr, D/sub 2/ filling) to measure deuteron beam energies, beam emission time, and absolute beam intensity as a function of drilling pressure and of hard x-ray intensities. A Faraday cup used as an ion collector was placed in a differentially pumped chamber (10/sup -4/ 10/sup -5/ Torr) which was separated from the plasma focus chamber via a 150 /sup +/m diameter pinhole. The energy spectrum of the deuteron beam from a plasma focus discharge was determined with a new time-of-flight method and with a differential filter (2.5 ..mu..m - 750 ..mu..m, mylar filters) method in the energy interval 0.2 to 9 MeV. The ion time-of-flight method accounts for the time structure of the ion beam source on a nanosecond time scale. The new experimental results show that, in beam mode operation (3 - 4 Torr D/sub 2/), more than 10/sup 14/ deuterons with energy 0.2-0.5 MeV are accelerated in each discharge in the electrode axis (2.3 x 10/sup -4/ sr) with corresponding peak ion current approx. = 200 mA, and more than 10/sup 12/ deuterons are accelerated in the energy interval 0.5 - 9 MeV with a peak current of 10 mA. The ion beam acceleration mechanism is strongly dependent on the filling pressure of the discharge chamber. The deuteron beam intensity increases with hard x-ray intensity which fits a particle acceleration process in which the same field accelerates both ion and electron beams.
- Research Organization:
- Stevens Inst. of Tech., Hoboken, NJ (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5403208
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
DEUTERON BEAMS
ACCELERATION
ENERGY SPECTRA
PLASMA FOCUS DEVICES
OPERATION
KEV RANGE 100-1000
MEV RANGE 01-10
BEAMS
ENERGY RANGE
ION BEAMS
KEV RANGE
MEV RANGE
OPEN PLASMA DEVICES
SPECTRA
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
700101* - Fusion Energy- Plasma Research- Confinement
Heating
& Production