Evaluation of pulsed ion beam produced in plasmas focus device

The characteristics of ion beams produced in a Mather-type plasma focus device have been studied. When a capacitor bank of 41.6 μF was charged to 30 kV, the discharge current reached a peak current of 450 kA, and after the current dip, an ion current density of 8 kA/cm² with a pulse width of 60 ns was obtained 110 mm downstream from the top of the anode on the axis. Ion beam was found to be emitted with very large spread of emission angle up to ±80deg. To evaluate the dependence of ion energy spectrum on the emission angle, we arrayed the incident angle resolved energy spectrometers simultaneously at different angular positions on a circumference of 110 mm in radius, centered at the focus. From the evaluation, we found that the ion energy was distributed from 0.1 MeV to 2 MeV and that ions with small emission angle have higher energy and wide spread of incidence angle. In addition, the ion energy and spread of incidence angle decrease with increasing emission angle. (author)