Spectroscopic characterization of impurity ions on the Hawk POS

Summary form only given. The intensities of several optical emission lines of C II, C III and C IV were measured on the Hawk plasma opening switch (PQS) in order to determine the role of contamination from plasma-surface interactions during the conduction phase. To operate the switch, the inverse pinch (IP) plasma source was used with hydrogen gas. This source injects a pure hydrogen plasma from inside the inner conductor (cathode) into the POS gap. Therefore, detection of carbon is direct evidence that impurities from material surfaces have been incorporated in to the switch plasma. In fact, previous experimental results with the IP suggested that impurities dominate the conduction scaling.