Impedance characteristics of the Bz diode on the LION accelerator

The LION accelerator at Cornell University is being used to study the characteristics of the applied B/sub z/, or 'barrel' diode. This 0.8 TW, 4 ohm, ion accelerator has the ability to take several shots per day, and hence alloys systematic scans to be performed. An important result of a recent series of experiments is that the diode impedance remains relatively constant, decaying only slowly, during the 50 nsec pulse. When the diode is operated with a 4.5 mm gap and a 21 kG insulating magnetic field, the typical diode parameters, are a voltage of 1 MV and a total current of 250 kA, leading to a diode impedance of 4 ohms and power of 0.25 TW. The diode impedance decays with a 100 nsec time constant. The ion beams have peak currents of roughly 125 kA and typical impedances of Bohms, which decays with a time constant of 25 nsec. The Child-Langmuir gap was approximately 2 mm and closed with a velocity of roughly 2X10/sup 6/ cm/sec. Current experimental work is aimed at characterizing the impedance of the B/sub z/ diode as a function of the applied magnetic field, the A-K gap, the anode curvature, and the anode groove parameters. In addition, the effect of changing the voltage rise with a plasma opening switch and of adding an electron limiter is examined. The ion beam quality is examined at the focus of the barrel diode with a swept Thomson parabola and various Rutherford scattering diagnostics