X-ray diagnostics in a mega-amp Dense Plasma Focus Device - Focus Fusion-1

Summary form only given. The scientists at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. are investigating the Focus Fusion-1 (FF1) Dense Plasma Focus device as an alternate concept for future net energy generation. The FF1 is capable of producing copious amounts of neutrons per shot (1.4 × 10¹¹ n/shot) from the D-D reactions. Along with neutrons, this device also produces other forms of radiation such as ion beams, electron beams, as well as hard and soft X-rays. In this presentation we will elaborate on the Scintillation-PMT detector diagnostic used for the X-ray detection, along with the sources of errors and solutions to handle such noise in the data. It was observed that the x-rays producing light in the scintillator also affect the dinodes in the PMT, which increases noise in the signal by as much as 50%. One way to fix this problem would be to keep the detector away from the line of sight of the X-rays and use optical mirrors to direct the light from the scintillator to the PMT detector.