MEASUREMENTS OF ELECTRICAL-CONDUCTIVITY AND THE MEAN IONIZATION STATEOF NONIDEAL ALUMINUM PLASMAS

Thin pure aluminum wires which are rapidly vaporized in small glass ca pillaries by means of a short pulse current from an electrical dischar ge convert into a nonideal plasma near solid density. For a short peri od of time, the inner wall of the rigid glass capillary confines the h omogeneous plasma until the induced pressure pulse disintegrates the c apillary. During this part of the discharge, no instabilities occur, a nd the transient plasma covers a range of parameters according to the charge of the capacitors: the particle density ranges from 0.001 to 1. 0 g/cm(3), the temperature from 7000 to 24 000 K and the electron dens ity from 2.0 X 10(25) to 3.0 x 10(26) m(-3). Plasma conductivity was d educed by simply applying Ohm's law to the measured voltage drop acros s the wire and to the measured current through the wire. [S1063-651X(9 8)14411-2].