Measurement of the resistivity and study of the dynamics of a cold, dense plasma created in a capillary discharge

Plasmas were created by discharging a 600-kV Marx bank across a 20μ-diameter capillary in polyurethane. The current generated by the Marx bank accretes material from the capillary wall and fills the initial void to form a plasma. Various diagnostics were fielded to help characterize the plasma. The diagnostics consist of: (1) a four channel x-ray diode array to measure the temperature, (2) schlieren photography to measure the time dependent radial size, (3) two capacitively coupled voltage probes to measure the time-dependent voltage generated by the pulse-power system and the voltage delivered across the capillary, (4) a localized Rogowski coil to measure the current through the capillary, (5) four inductive shunts to measure the return current, (6) and end-on framing and side-on visible streak photography to measure time dependent size of the visible emission. The plasmas were characterized as having densities on the order of 6 x 1022 and temperatures of ≅ 10 eV. The peak current is reached in 270 ns at 550 kA