ISSN:
1089-7623
Source:
AIP Digital Archive
Topics:
Physics
,
Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Control Technology
Notes:
A novel "point-diffraction'' interferometer has been implemented on the Los Alamos solid fiber Z-pinch experiment. The laser beam is split into two legs after passing through the plasma. The reference leg is filtered with a pin-hole aperture and recombined with the other leg to form an interferogram. This allows compact mounting of the optics and relative ease of alignment. The Z-pinch experiment employs a pulsed-power generator that delivers up to 700 kA with a 100 ns rise time through a fiber of deuterium or deuterated polyethylene (CD2) that is 5-cm long and initially solid with radius r≈15 μm. The interferometer, using a Δt≈200 ps pulse from a Nd:YAG laser frequency doubled to λ=532 nm, measures the electron line density and, assuming azimuthal symmetry, the density as a function of radial and axial position. Calculations predict Faraday rotations of order π/2 for plasma and current densities that this experiment was designed to produce. The resulting periodic loss of fringes would provide the current density distribution.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1143429
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