Research Directors: Dr. Farzin Aghamir

A plasma focus device is a simple discharge apparatus, which has been used for a variety of applications as a radiation source. It is a high voltage pulsed system capable of emitting radiation in soft and hard x-ray spectrum, generating relativistic electrons, energetic ions, and neutron beams. During the operation of the PF device, a high voltage from the capacitor bank is applied to the central electrode at the optimum gas pressure. As the result of an electrical breakdown along the insulator sleeve surface, a plasma current sheath is formed. The current sheath dynamic in the radial collapse phase leads to the formation of a high density and high-temperature plasma column to produce relativistic electrons and intense ion beams. The intense ions, in the range of tens keV to few MeV, emitted from hot and dense plasma have been used for material processing such as surface modification, ion implantation, and thin film deposition. The x-ray radiation from the PF devices has a wide range of applications in many fields such as micro-lithography and microscopy. There are two main well-known mechanisms for x-ray radiation in plasma focus devices; line and continuum radiations. The line radiation has two scenarios; one originates from working gas and the other one whose produced total radiation energy overweighs the first one, comes from the interaction between the energetic electrons and the anode. The continuum radiation in plasma focus machines includes recombination and Bremsstrahlung which latter one is caused by the accelerating of electrons in the Coulomb field of ions that can also produce hard x-ray.

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