Controlling the Neutron Yield from a Small Dense Plasma Focus using Deuterium-Inert Gas Mixtures
- Alameda Applied Sciences Corp. 626 Whitney St., San Leandro, CA (United States)
The dense plasma focus (DPF) is a well known source of neutrons when operating with deuterium. The DPF is demonstrated to scale from 10{sup 4} n/pulse at 40 kA to >10{sup 12} n/pulse at 2 MA by non-linear current scaling as described in [1], which is itself based on the simple yet elegant model developed by Lee [2]. In addition to the peak current, the gas pressure controls the neutron yield. Recent published results suggest that mixing 1-5% mass fractions of Krypton increase the neutron yield per pulse by more than 10x. In this paper we present results obtained by mixing deuterium with Helium, Neon and Argon in a 500 J dense plasma focus operating at 140 kA with a 600 ns rise time. The mass density was held constant in these experiments at the optimum (pure) deuterium mass density for producing neutrons. A typical neutron yield for a pure deuterium gas charge is 2x10{sup 6}{+-}15% n/pulse. Neutron yields in excess of 10{sup 7}{+-}10% n/pulse were observed with low mass fractions of inert gas. Time integrated optical images of the pinch, soft x-ray measurements and optical emission spectroscopy where used to examine the pinch in addition to the neutron yield monitor and the fast scintillation detector. Work supported by Domestic Nuclear Detection Office under contract HSHQDC-08-C-00020.
- OSTI ID:
- 21255337
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1088, Issue 1; Conference: 7. international conference on dense Z-pinches, Alexandria, VA (United States), 12-21 Aug 2008; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3079727; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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