Heavy ion beam generation in plasma focus systems

Summary form only given. Experimental studies of the processes of generating accelerated multicharged heavy ions-occurring in the contact zone (CZ) of plasma focus discharge with an anode, as a result of electric fields emerging in it and having an accelerating voltage of a few MeV-are represented. An X-ray image of the CZ together with the image of a track, where an "ion image" shift due to the accelerated heavy ion drift in an azimuthal magnetic field of the pinch is seen, has been produced with the combined pinhole camera. Implementation of the additional longitudinal (axial) magnetic field which is captured and compressed by a plasma sheath moving along the anode surface has allowed us to explain a spiral-like nature of CZ-translation along the anode surface. This phenomenon is related with the emergence of radial "metallic" near-anode plasma jets under destruction of the pinch.