A METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF SPATIAL ELECTRON DENSITY DISTRIBUTION IN GREAT PLASMA-FOCUS DEVICES

Andrzej Kasperczuk, Marian Paduch, Tadeusz Pisarczyk, Krzysztof Tomaszewski

Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion, 23 Hery Str., 00-908 Warsaw, Poland


Determination of the electron density of plasma generated in a great Plasma-Focus device by means of interferometry is very difficult or sometimes impossible. In order to determine spatial electron density distributions of plasma in a PF-1000 device, a special method was prepared, with the use of plasma images obtained by means of both an optical frame camera and shadowgraphy. Analysis of plasma radiation in the very narrow Dl=60 A optical range allowed us to determine the relation between intensity of the plasma radiation and the electron density. It was also shown that the influence of electron temperature on plasma radiation is not large. The presented method allowed us to obtain spatial electron density distributions of plasma (in relative units) in the PF-1000 device. By means of this method a number of important information about the Plasma-Focus phenomenon was obtained.