NUKLEONIKA 2011, 56(2):125-129

 


OPTICAL EMISSION SPECTROSCOPY OF PLASMA STREAMS
IN PF-1000 EXPERIMENTS



Katarzyna Jakubowska1, Monika Kubkowska1, Elzbieta Skladnik-Sadowska2,
Karol Malinowski2, Anna K. Marchenko3, Marian Paduch1, Marek J. Sadowski1,2,
Marek Scholz1

1 Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion, 23 Hery Str., 01-497 Warsaw, Poland
2 The Andrzej Soltan Institute for Nuclear Studies, 05-400 Otwock/Świerk, Poland
3 Institute of Plasma Physics, NSC KIPT, 61108 Kharkov, Ukraine


The optical spectroscopy in the visible range was used to determine properties of the dense magnetized plasma generated in the PF-1000, a 1 MJ plasma focus device operating in the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (IPPLM) in Warsaw, Poland. The experiments were performed in a vacuum chamber pumped out to the basic pressure of 2×10-5 hPa. The initial pressure of the pure deuterium filling was 2.9 hPa, while that of the deuterium-argon mixture was 1.07 hPa of D2 and 0.13 hPa of Ar. The deuterium-plasma emission contained the Balmer series (Dalpha, Dbeta and Dgamma) and a few distinct copper (Cu I) lines originating from the inner electrode material. The emission of the deuterium-argon plasma was rich in Ar II lines. The electron density (ne), averaged over line of sight, of order of 1016 cm-3 was calculated on the basis of the Dbeta and Dgamma emission only, because the Dalpha line was strongly self-absorbed. A group of the Ar II spectral lines was used to estimate the excitation temperature (Texc = 3 eV) by means of a Boltzmann plot. Additionally, the temporal evolution of the electron density was determined on basis of the Stark broadening of the Dbeta and Dgamma lines.


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