Effect of anode end structures on plasma pinching in a plasma focus

Summary form only given. It is known that in the plasma focus, the anode (CE) end structure influences the current sheath (CS) implosion and pinching, which then influences the neutron yield. However, the correlation among them is not very clear. This problem is investigated on a small Mather-type plasma focus device (20 kV, 18 kJ) with use of a laser differential interferometer. The results show that the usually used anodes can be roughly grouped into three interrelated series derived from a basic flat-ended solid one according to their effects on the plasma motion: (1) the hollow series for the anode hole; (2) the stub series for the stub and (3) the hemispherical series for the anode edge geometry.