Measurements of Dense Plasma Focus performance with both deuterium and deuterium-tritium gasses

Summary form only given. NSTec has constructed and is operating several Dense Plasma Focus devices, with capacitor bank sizes ranging from a kilojoule to 2 megajoules. Most have been fueled with deuterium. A new machine has been designed and brought into operation with deuterium - tritium as fuel. An overview of this family of DPF sources will be presented, followed by a discussion of initial results and conclusions from the startup of the new deuterium-tritium fueled Dense Plasma Focus.The new source has a full-voltage energy capacity of 700 kJ, is typically operated with stored energies of 200-350 kJ, at voltages between 25 and 35 kV producing total currents of ≥2 million amperes, and 14 MeV yields of up to 1013 neutrons/pulse.Comparisons of features of DD and DT operation of this machine will be presented, including the observed ratio of deuterium neutron yield to deuterium-tritium neutron yield, measurements of reaction duration for DD and DT fuels measured by PMT-flour and diamond detectors, inferred beam target ion energies, energy and fluence anisotropy, and some factors governing observed neutron timeof-flight peak shapes.