Installation of New High-Field Mirror Coil Magnets on the Big Red Ball

A set of high-strength (0.3 T on-axis) coils have been installed on opposing ends of the BRB experiment; the coils serve to produce a large mirror within BRB. The mirror configuration can be varied by independently controlling the current through the existing Helmholtz coils and the mirror coils. The coils consist of 128 turns of internally water cooled copper conductor and have a bore of 14 inches with a 30.75 inch outside diameter. Plasma is produced with an array of washer guns mounted inside the coils. Future work will focus on spherical mirror stability in this configuration as well as the introduction of rotation using WiPPL LaB6 emissive cathodes to bias the magnetized plasma column.