Formation of a Plasma Conductor by Induction

Plasma has been formed by exploding a wire in an inductively coupled circuit. Capacitors are discharged through air-cored mutually coupled coils. The exploding wire section of the electrically isolated coil is 0.2 mm diameter copper wire. The energy source is a 21.4 μF capacitor bank, charged to 21.5 kV, producing 0.5 m of plasma discharge in a single turn. Waveforms of voltage and current for the energy source are presented, as well as waveforms of the exploding wire voltage. There are some discussions on the electrical characteristics and the copper residues left behind from the wire explosion.