Magnetized Plasma Guns for the BETHE PLX PJMIF Project

In plasma jet driven magneto-inertial fusion (PJMIF), an array of discrete supersonic plasma jets is used to form a spherically imploding plasma liner, which then compresses a magnetized plasma target to fusion conditions[1]. We are currently pursuing the formation of a central high-beta magnetized plasma target via the collision of an array of magnetized jets. Magnetized coaxial plasma guns have been developed by adding a bias field coil to the previously developed contoured gap plasma liner gun. We have achieved (exceeded) our goal of magnetized hydrogen plasma jets with 3 x 10¹⁴ cm^-3 muzzle density, temperature above 5 eV, 100 km/s, and with an embedded field of 1 kG. This was achieved partly by reducing the pfn to only 400μF as suggested by Mach2 modeling and also by fine tuning operating parameters. We are currently assessing methods to minimize plasma impurities. We provide an overview of experimental results, and plans for a 2-jet colliding experiment. [1] Hsu et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 40, 1287 (2012).