Development of Intergral Static Gas Filled/uv Filter Load for Plasma Radiation Simulators

"The perturbation of the plasma density and current flow of an imploding gas puff load by the Rayleigh Taylor (R-T) instability is predicted to be the major impediment to using a long current pulse generator to produce x-rays for radiation simulationapplication. HY-Tech proposes a thin wall low Z cylinder to statically confine a gas puff load in the anode-cathode gap of a plasma radiation source (PRS) to address this issue. This load configuration should provide a radially and axially uniform gasdistribution which should both minimize R-T growth through snowplow damping and eliminate load zippering. Reliable breakdown initiation is expected along the inside surface of the ceramic cylinder which is expected to survive well past the x-ray emissiontime. The surviving cylinder will function as a debris filter by absorbing the UV emitted by the pinch and confine the expanding plasma while transmitting k-shell x-rays whose energies are greater than 3 keV. This dual load/debris filter configuration isexpected to optimize the yield from a PRS and maximize the on target fluence by bringing the coupon closer to the source in present simulators and substantially reduce the cost of constructing the next generation simulator. The load/uv filter combinationwill find wide spread application in Defense Threat Reduction Agency simulators as a research tool to optimize the load configuration for long use time accelerators, in present accelerators to in