Dynamics of CO2 laser heated solenoids

Abstract

Experimental results are reported for long pulse CO2 laser production and heating of magnetically confined plasma columns. The plasma column is produced by an ionizing and heating wave propagation along the axis of a linear magnetic solenoid when laser radiation is focused into hydrogen gas contained inside the solenoid. The axial behavior is found to be reasonably well described by a "bleaching" wave model which predicts column length as a function of time. Radial behavior, following a transient ionization and expansion phase, is determined by a balance of ion thermal conduction and inverse bremsstrahlung laser heating. A finite ionization time is observed at the gas breakdown front. Energy balance measurements indicate that most of the incident laser energy is effectively coupled to ionization and heating of the plasma. Temperature measurements show good agreement with predictions of simple scaling models from which pressure balance gives a density value in agreement with experiment.