Gas mixture effects on ion‐beam flux characteristics from dense plasma focus device: Investigation by the Vlasov–Maxwell equations and experiments

The Vlasov–Maxwell equations were numerically solved to calculate the ion‐beam flux from the plasma of argon and the plasma of mixtures of argon and neon. Some experiments were performed to measure the ion beam from the Amirkabir plasma focus (APF) device. The calculations have shown that the argon ion‐beam flux peaked up to 1.928 × 10${}^{30}$ ions m${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$ at the optimum pressure of 1.866 mbar while the neon‐argon mixture's ion‐beam flux reached a maximum of 4.301 × 10${}^{30}$ ions m${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$ for 15% neon admixture at the optimum pressure of 1.866 mbar. The calculated kinetic energy of the ion beam has shown a maximum value of 708.7 J for the mixture of 85% argon‐15% neon at the mentioned optimum pressure. (© 2019 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)