Spherical plasma focus operated with nitrogen and neon gases for soft x-rays (bremsstrahlung radiation, line radiation, and radiative recombination)

Abstract

Abstract X-ray emissions (bremsstrahlung radiation, line radiation, and radiative recombination) from spherical plasma focus (SPF) device are investigated with the developed spherical MHD model for nitrogen (N) and neon (Ne) gases with respect to gas pressure, which is varied from 0.1 Torr to 7 Torr. Ion density, plasma velocity, pinch temperature, and peak current are also calculated for N and Ne gases. The total capacitance, external inductance, charging voltage, and stored energy as the operational conditions of the SPF device in this study are 432 µF, 36 nH, 25 kV, and 135 kJ. The maximum current is achieved at 7 Torr for both N (1561 kA) and Ne (1525 kA). It is found that there is an optimum pressure point for both x-rays (bremsstrahlung radiation, line radiation, and radiative recombination) and the used gases (N and Ne), separately. While the optimum pressure of bremsstrahlung radiation for N and Ne gases are 0.9 Torr and 1 Torr, respectively, these optimum pressures of radiative recombination and line radiation are 1 Torr for N gas and 1.1 Torr for Ne gas, respectively. It is also found that line radiation constitutes the big portion of the soft x-ray (SXR) emissions from SPF device. Line radiations of N at 1 Torr and Ne at 1.1 Torr are 911 J (91% of total N SXRs) and 3036.5 J (93.1% of total Ne SXRs), respectively, which shows that SPF device can be considered as a good SXR source. Ion densities and peak currents at 7 Torr are calculated as 21.88 × 1023 m−3 with 1561 kA peak current for N gas and 15.98 × 1023 m−3 with 1525 kA peak current for Ne gas.