Preliminary Results of a 10 kJ Z-Pinch

Preliminary results obtained on 10 kJ Z‐pinch device developed at the Plasma and Electrical Discharge Laboratory in the University of Castilla‐La Mancha are presented. The device called ENERGU‐1 is composed by 8 capacitors (0.5 μF, 75 kV, 20 nH) connected in parallel to a discharge chamber by means of one high power plane transmission line by mean of 8 spark‐gaps switches triggered by a 100 kV, 13 ns trigger pulse. The discharge chamber is a cylindrical Pyrex glass tube externally surrounded by a SF6 isolation atmosphere with the electrodes at the ends. Two different chambers have been studied by discharging the capacitor bank energy in deuterium for optimizing the D‐D nuclear fusion reactions: one of 100 mm long by 100 mm inner diameter and the other of the same length and 70 mm inner diameter. Several sequences of ultrahigh speed converter camera photography (5 ns) are presented showing the implosion of plasma columns for different deuterium pressure and currents. Preliminary measurements of integrated 2.45 MeV neutron emissions by a silver activated neutron counter are analyzed as a function of electrical and constructive parameters. A yield of 107–108 D‐D fusion reactions by shot is reported when the optimum conditions are reached conducting currents of 400–600 kA with a plasma column lifetime above 100 ns.