Refinement and characterization of the magnetized target guns for PLX liner-on-target experiments

In plasma jet driven magneto-inertial fusion (PJMIF), an array of discrete supersonic plasma jets is used to form a spherically imploding plasma liner, which then compresses a magnetized plasma target to fusion conditions[1]. We plan to form the target by stagnating a number of magnetized plasma jets in the center of the target chamber. Magnetized coaxial plasma guns have been developed by adding a bias field coil to the previously developed contoured gap plasma liner gun. We have exceeded our goal of magnetized deuterium plasma jets with ∼3 x 10¹⁴ cm^-3 muzzle density, temperature above 5 eV, 100 km/s, and with an embedded field of ∼1 kG. We have found operating parameters that are promising for target formation, and have mitigated impurities in the jets. We present here the results of jet characterization and of two-gun experiments involving colliding the magnetized plasma jets. We have performed a set of experiments to increase the temperature of the hot spot at the collision of the two jets. We also present the spectroscopic temperature measurements and the complexities of interpretation.

[1] Hsu et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 40, 1287 (2012).