Magnetized Plasma Gun Development for the PLX PJMIF Project

We present engineering and technical details of magnetized plasma gun development for the Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX) project [1]. Intended to form a magnetized hydrogen plasma target for plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion (PJMIF), the magnetized guns are an extension of HyperJet Fusion's most recently developed coaxial plasma guns (HJ1), which form the plasma liner for target compression. Each gun incorporates a high power, pulsed magnet coil designed to provide linked magnetic flux between gun electrodes in the plasma formation region such that the resultant hydrogen plasma jet exits the gun with an embedded magnetic field. A 25 kJ capacitor bank with SCR switching and crowbar diode was used to energize a 30-turn magnet coil for initial testing and validation, which provided up to 3.1 kG of peak field within the gun at maximum magnet charge voltage, resulting in up to 4 mWb of flux linking electrodes in the breech. With this magnet system, we have exceeded our goal of magnetized hydrogen plasma jets with ∽3 x 10¹⁴ cm^-3 muzzle density, ∽5 eV electron temperature, ∽100 km/s velocity and an embedded field of ∽1 kG. [1] Hsu et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 40 (2012).