Optical emission of exploding-film and wire-initiated discharges

Conference · Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1983

OSTI ID:5908381

Ware, K D; Jones, C R

Optical sources of several megawatts-cm/sup -2/ over large surface areas are available from electrical discharges initiated by exploding films and wires immersed in a gas. Discharging high-current capacitor banks into the metal conductors causes them to melt, vaporize, and then eventually ionize to a high-conductivity plasma of less than a milliohm/cm-length resistance. As such, over 1000 MW of ohmic heating goes into the discharge, elevating its blackbody temperature up to 35,000 K. In this work, film thicknesses from 0.1 to 10 ..mu..m and wire diameters from 0.051 to 0.25 mm with lengths ranging from 8 to 90 cm were exploded and the brightness temperatures measured in the spectral regions about 200, 280, and 520 nm. The optical emission generally increased with the time rate of change of the current, the current per unit diameter for the films, and the gas pressure in the cell, but showed little dependence on the mass or kind of metal exploded. The discharge radius expanded at velocities of approximately 1.5 km-s/sup -1/.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 5908381
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-83-1588; CONF-830425-29; ON: DE83014154
• Resource Relation: Conference: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers conference, Santa Fe, NM, USA, 11 Apr 1983
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
EMISSION SPECTRA
EXPLODING WIRES
BRIGHTNESS
FILMS
GASES
JOULE HEATING
LIGHT SOURCES
PLASMA
SCALING LAWS
VISIBLE RADIATION
VISIBLE SPECTRA
WIRES
ELECTRIC HEATING
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EXPLOSIONS
FLUIDS
HEATING
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PLASMA HEATING
RADIATION SOURCES
RADIATIONS
RESISTANCE HEATING
SPECTRA
640420* - Fluid Physics- Properties & Structure of Fluids- (-1987)