OPERATION OF COAXIAL PLASMA SOURCE IN A LONGITUDINAL MAGNETIC FIELD,
Abstract
To produce a plasmoid with a relatively small number of impurities and neutral particles, a new construction was developed, in which the coaxial plasma gun is placed in a longitudinal magnetic field, with an aim of having the rotation of the plasma in the crossed electric and magnetic fields symmetrize the discharge in azimuth and increase the degree of ionization and the magnitude of the transverse component of the particle energy. A field up to 8000 G was produced by discharging a capacitor bank. The working gas was hydrogen. The gun-current oscillogram shows the typical plateau characterizing rotation of the plasma in the crossed fields. The rotation of the plasma was measured with external probes and the propagation of the plasma in the azimuthal direction was investigated by high-speed photography. The experiment showed that when the coaxial source is placed in a longitudinal magnetic field the plasma rotates in azimuthal direction, the discharge occurs over the entire length of the gun and is symmetrical with respect to the periphery of the electrodes. This contributes to a cleaner plasma. Spectrograms of the discharge showed that the magnetic field does decrease the intensity of the iron and chromium lines in the plasma spectrum. A shortcoming of the source is the small longitudinal plasmoid velocity (10 to the 7th power cm/sec) and insufficient ionization. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 21, 1967
- Accession Number
- AD0668100
Entities
People
- I. M. Zolototrubov
- V. A. Kiselev
- V. T. Tolok
- Yu. M. Novikov
Organizations
- National Air and Space Intelligence Center