Ion confinement by high-density plasmoids and wall-material damage

Plasma lumps with a density >1018 cm-3 and sharply defined boundaries (plasmoids) are produced and ejected simultaneously with electron and ion beams (1 keV-2 MeV) during the subnanosecond disruption of a MA current channel in deuterium plasma by a plasma-focus discharge. The internal structure of plasmoids and ion beams is recorded by the induced damage on targets of various materials (the space resolution of the beam structure is better than 1 μm; the space resolution of the structure of the plasmoid boundary on the plasmoid image by a contact print on plastic materials is about 50 μm or better). We report here observations of damage on A1, A1 oxide and stainless steel under plasma conditions by which extreme values of radiation-dose rate are provided by ion beams and by plasmoid impact on the target. (author)