Diagnostics of Fast Axial Ions Produced in Deuterium Gas-Puff Z-Pinch

An unexpected advantage of some Z-pinch configurations is a possibility of an acceleration of ions to high energies. One of these configurations is a deuterium gas-puff with outer plasma shell, where hydrogen ions with energies up to 40 MeV has been observed during Z-pinch experiments on the GIT-12 generator since 2013. During the recent campaign in 2016, the source of high energetic ions and also parameters of ion pulses have been studied by various in-chamber diagnostics in 24 experimental shots on the current level below 3 MA. Principal aims were (i) to find a spatial distribution of ion sources, (ii) localization of ion sources on the z-axis and (iii) determine the ion energy spectra by an unfold technique. All of these has been done with the help of a new diagnostic setup consists of an ion pinhole camera, an ion 3-pinhole camera, a multi-pinhole camera and a detector of spatial ion beam profile. The ion diagnostics contained stacks with various absorbers, CR-39 track detectors, HD-V2 and EBT-3 radio-chromic films. One more aim, (iv) the study of a difference in production time of axial ion pulses with off-axis pulses, were accomplished by LiF samples and nTOF signals.