Plasma Opening Switch for long-pulse intense ion beam

A Plasma Opening Switch (POS) is being developed at Los Alamos, as part of an intense ion beam experiment with special application to materials processing. The switch must conduct up to 100 kA for 400 ns, and open quickly to avoid premature gap closure in the ion beam diode load. Power multiplication is not a necessity, but prepulse suppression is. A positive central polarity is desirable, since with it an ion beam can be conveniently launched beyond the switch from the central anode toward a negatively charged target. Using traditional scaling rules, a POS was designed with a 1.25 cm radius inner anode, and a 5.0 cm radius outer cathode. This has been constructed, and subjected to circuit, and simulational analysis. The computations are being performed with the 2D ANTHEM implicit code. Preliminary results show a marked difference in switching dynamics, when the central positive polarity is used in place of the more conventional opposite choice. Opening is achieved by the fast development of a central anode magnetic layer, rather than by the more conventional slow evolution of a cathode gap. With the central anode, higher fill densities are needed to achieve desired conduction times. This has suggested switch design improvements, which are discussed.