Analysis of nitrogen ion beam produced in dense plasma focus device using Faraday Cup

Abstract

A nanosecond response Faraday Cup was fabricated and employed to characterize pulsed ion beam of a 2.2 kJ Mather type Dense Plasma Focus Device. The Faraday Cup operating in bias ion collector mode was used to determine the energy spectrum and flux of fast nitrogen ion beam along the electrode axis (0°) of the device. It has been possible to register the ion energy up to a lower kinetic energy threshold of ~7 keV which is a value much lower than that obtained in any previous works. The correlation of the ion beam intensity with filling gas pressure is also reported.