A gas-discharge plasma focuser

Abstract

A device is proposed for the formation of a gas-discharge plasma stream with a sinusoidal distribution of the charged-particle density over the stream cross section, which is achieved by using wavy shapes of the anode and cathode surfaces that are placed coaxially relative to each other at the distance λ_e < h < 3λ_e, where λ_e is the mean free path of an electron in the gas-discharge plasma stream. The anode is a stainless steel grid with mesh dimensions of 1 × 1 mm. The aluminum cathode is 120 mm in diameter and 50-mm thick. The device provides a discharge current of up to 0.6 А at a controlled voltage at the electrodes in the range of 0.21–0.7 kV. In this case, plasma streams propagate to a distance of up to 50λ_e beyond the limits of the electrodes.