Enhancing soft X-ray emission with depleted uranium in neon plasma focus

Department of Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University, 45320 Islamabad, Pakistan

Corresponding author: mzakaullah@qau.edu.pk

Received: 10 September 2008
Revised: 11 May 2009
Accepted: 18 May 2009
Published online: 17 September 2009

Abstract

Depleted uranium (U is used for pre-ionization in the neon gas to study the soft X-ray emission in a Mather type plasma focus of 3.3 kJ. The X-rays are detected using an assembly of Quantrad Si pin diodes, masked with differential Ross fitters, and with a multi pinhole camera. The X-ray yield and pinhole images are found strongly influenced by the preionization and the pressure of the working gas. The soft X-ray yield of 82.5 ± 4.0 J in 1.3–1.56 keV energy window is obtained in the case of preionization of neon gas at the optimum pressure of 5 mbar, leading to the conversion efficiency of 2.5% of the stored energy. The total yield with preionization is 195 ± 9.0 J in 4π geometry measured at the optimum pressure of 5 mbar giving conversion efficiency of 5.9%. The time integrated images indicate the broadening of X-ray emission zone with preionization.