Production of a Hot Rotating Plasma

Rotating Plasmas

“…During the starting and burn-out process a large outflux of neutral gas should arise from the confinement region to the outer wall-near regions, on account of elastic and charge-exchange collisions with the rotating plasma ions. Such a flux of neutrals has in fact also been detected in Homopolar V by means of a particle analyser [163].…”

“…(j) Neutral particle analysers measure the flux of emitted neutrals due to charge exchange collisions with the rotating plasma. This gives information about the state of ionization and the azimuthal plasma velocity [163,164].…”

“…(k) When the random motion of the ions is large enough their energy and density can be determined from the neutron production in deuterium and tritium plasmas [12,18,163].…”

“…Among the experimental devices which have been used so far, five types can be distinguished, as represented by the examples of Table I Homopolar Stockholm [36. 38] Homopolar Leatherhead [179] Homopolar Kharkov [174] Ixion III Los Alamos [12,158,161] Kruisvuur I Amsterdam [52, 89, PIG discharge Schenectady [185] Reflex discharge Saclay [176] Penning discharge Stockholm [182] Reflex discharge Kharkov [152] Type 'B' Homopolar IV Berkeley [31] Homopolar V Berkeley [163] Puffatron Risrf [177.180] Homopolar Gun I Berkeley [181] Alice Puffatron Livermore [175] Plasma source Berkeley [197] Plasma source Madison [199] Polarity pos. 2 X 1 0 1 9 to 3 X10 20 3 X 1 0 " to 3 x 1 0 " 3xlO 1 6 [166] Supper II Sydney [100, 170.172] Type 'D* Rotating field Culham [67] Rotating pinch Lausanne [168] Type ' E '…”

“…During a transient state the plasma is then bounded by high (a) Type ' B ' system in which interaction between the plasma and the end walls is avoided by creating a plasma blob of finite axial extensions. Neutral gas is introduced by a fast valve and is ionized at the centre of the vacuum chamber [163] .…”