Method to Improve Initial Azimutal Uniformity of a Current Shell in Devices with a Plasma Focus

摘要

In a device with a plasma focus, the possibility of improving the initial azimuthal uniformity of the current plasma shell is realized by enhancing the stabilizing action of the skin effect at an increase in the initial rate of the discharge current rise. An additional current source is used, which is switched on before the operation of the vacuum discharger triggering the capacitor bank. The source creates a breakdown along the insulator in the discharge chamber and a rise in current with a high initial rate, which cannot be provided in the devices with a traditional circuit of switching by a vacuum discharger, immediately after the breakdown. The use of an additional current source in the test experiments made it possible to increase the working pressure of deuterium in the chamber more than by a factor of three and significantly increase the stability of the device. It is shown that when an additional current source is switched on, an azimuthally uniform current plasma shell with a sufficiently high degree of ionization is formed in the discharge chamber, and it excludes the development of large-scale current perturbations during a subsequent flow across the shell of a growing discharge current in the capacitor bank.