Highly ionized copper contribution to the soft X-ray emission in a plasma focus device

In order to discriminate between the contributions of the gas plasma and of the anode (solid or plasma) to the soft X-ray emission in a plasma focus device, a series of experiments was carried out using the following combinations of experimental conditions: various gases, different absorption filters and viewing different regions in front of the centre electrode. The experiments were performed on the IPF-2/20 plasma focus device using the following working gases: helium, neon and helium-argon mixtures. The diagnostics used: magnetic probe for current derivative, PIN diode for the minimum pinch radius detection, PIN diodes for the soft X-ray emission, scintillator-photomultiplier detector for the hard X-ray emission. From the analysis of the various diagnostics data recorded with very good time correlation, it followed that the soft X-ray signals had a strong contribution from optical transitions of the highly ionised Cu (CuXX to XXII) emitting in the range 0.8–1.3 nm.