Deuteron beam characteristics of 2.5 kJ KSU-DPF as a high inductance dense plasma focus machine

Dense plasma focus machines have been recently divided according to the value of inductance into high and low inductance types. The Kansas State University dense plasma focus machine (KSU-DPF) is a 2.5 kJ with 90nH inductance 1 . The KSU-DPF characterized by longer compression phase which reaches more than 400ns in some cases. The deuteron beam emission has been studied; the time of flight technique was used to determine the energy of the axially emitted deuterons at various deuterium gas pressures. The spatial distribution of the beam has been studied by means of faraday cups (FC). Four FCs were distributed at 0, 10, 20, 30 degrees from the axial direction at 5.5 inch distance from the top of the anode. The intensity of the deuteron beam was found to be maximum around 4 mbar. The mean energy of the deuteron beam increases with the pressure in the range of fraction of mbar up to 1.5 mbar, where the mean energy reaches maximum value of more than 100keV. The energy is then inversely proportional to the gas pressure. The spatial distribution of the deuteron beam intensity was plotted; the plotted graph indicates the divergence of the deuteron beam at different gas pressures starting from 0.5 mbar up to 8 mbar.