EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON A LONG-CONDUCTION TIME-PLASMA OPENING SWITCH AND ITS APPLICATION ON A 01-TW GENERATOR FOR PREPULSE SUPPRESSION

Our laboratory has been working for the last three years on plasma ope ning switches (POS). After characterization of the plasma created by p lasma guns[1], we investigate in this paper physical processes occurin g during long-conduction-time [2] POS operation using diagnostics such as Rogowski coils, Faraday cups, time-integrated and streak photos. T he importance of different parameters of our system, such as the gener ator charging voltage, the geometry of the switch and the plasma densi ty, have been studied. Our results are correlated with two theoretical models, and the experiment shows that the use of an 80% transparent i nner electrode can significantly increase the opening speed. In the se cond part of this paper, we applied the POS in a short-conduction-time experiment. We are presenting results obtained in upgrading a 0.1 TW generator (2 OMEGA, approximately 250 kA, approximately 50 ns). The pr epulse suppression has been achieved with a short-circuit load and wit h an aluminum vapor Z-pinch as a load. Incorporation of the POS improv es the compression of the Z-pinch and increases the radiation yield.