Experimental study of a small gas-puff Z-pinch plasma device

An experiment was carried out on a small gas-puff Z-pinch plasma device with capacitor bank of 16 /spl mu/F and charging voltage 22 kV. Discharge current was measured by Rogowski coil. A compact Thomson ion energy analyzer was installed in the discharge chamber for determining the energy spectra of ion beam emitted from the Z-pinch plasma. The energy spectra of argon ion beams with single, double and triple charges were determined using the analyzer. A Mach-Zehnder laser interferometer was installed to measure the electron density and the movement of Z-pinch plasma. The electron density of the plasma just before pinch instant is larger than 9.00/spl times/10/sup 18//cm/sup 3/, the corresponding radius and the pinch velocity of the plasma are 1.42 mm and 1.86 cm//spl mu/s, respectively. The yield and the time variation of X-ray emitted from the pinch plasma were also measured.