Plasma Density Measurements in Cable Gun Experiments with a Sensitive He-Ne Interferometer

A time-resolved sensitive He-Ne laser interferometer without complicated active stabilization was built up and applied to low-density plasma measurements. A precision of about 0.2° in phase measurements was achieved with a minimum line-integrated plasma density as low as 8.3×1013 cm−2. With this interferometer, the characteristics of the plasma generated by a cable plasma gun was investigated systematically. The reproducibility, spatial and temporal distributions and the averaged injection velocity of the plasma are presented. In addition, the interaction of the plasma flow with a conductor was studied by placing a metal plate in the downstream of the cable gun.