Development of a kJ-class dense plasma focus*

A kJ-class dense plasma focus (DPF) is in development at Virginia Tech for the purposes of studying the generation of axial electric fields in the focus and associated neutron and x-ray production. Design and construction of the experiment was done as part of a capstone senior design project. A custom fiber optic control system is used to operate the DPF from a remote computer. A Rogowski coil was constructed and calibrated to measure the current from the 1.3 uF, 40 kV RLC network. Preliminary results indicating a peak current of 92 kA when operating at 35 kV are presented along with photographs of initial helium plasmas and estimates of neutron production in deuterium plasmas. Additional diagnostics are needed to characterize neutron and x-ray production, and the device is intended to be operated using either helium or deuterium.