Terawatt fiber pinch experiments
- 15 December 1991
- journal article
- research article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Journal of Applied Physics
- Vol. 70 (12) , 7261-7272
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.349773
Abstract
Pinch formation in fiber pinch experiments has been investigated in the lower terawatt regime. The main results are: (1) there are upper limits of breakdown voltage (∼700 kV) and current rise rate (∼20 kA/ns) beyond which leak discharges develop within the vacuum feed of the pulseline KALIF; (2) there is a lower limit of fiber radius (∼10 μm) below which pinch disruptions take place at a pinch current of ≳300 kA; (3) the hot (Te≤1 keV) inhomogeneous pinch plasma develops typically 10 ns after local collapses (micropinches) at a pinch current ≳400 kA and lives for more than 50 ns; (4) neutron emission (yield of CD2 fibers ∼1010) appears mostly isotropic; (5) all fiber pinches show global expansion with velocities reaching from typically 10 μm/ns (initial expansion) to ≳100 μm/ns; and (6) the power requirements for the fiber ablation process are contradictory to those for the final pinch phase.This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
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