Improvement of projectile velocity and impact rate on a target by two-stage plasma accelerator

A new two-stage plasma accelerator was tested to conduct the hypervelocity acceleration of microprojectiles. The accelerator consisted of a gas gun as the first stage and a plasma accelerator as the second stage. it was confirmed that the two-stage operation performed well at any timing started by the laser trigger system. It was found that the velocity of projectiles was increased in the two-stage operation and that the velocity greatly depended on the position at the beginning of acceleration. The impact rate of projectiles on a target was also markedly increased. (author)