Diagnostics for a small gas-puff Z-pinch plasma device

Experiments were carried out on a small gas-puff Z-pinch plasma device with a capacitor bank of 16 /spl mu/F and a charging voltage of 22 kV. A compact Thomson ion energy analyzer was installed on the device for determining the energy spectra of ion beam emitted from the Z-pinch plasma. The energy spectra of Argon ion beams with single, double, and triple charges were determined with the analyzer. A Mach-Zehnder laser interferometer was installed to measure the electron density and the movement of the Z-pinch plasma. The electron density of the plasma just before the pinch is larger than 9.00/spl times/10/sup 18/ cm/sup 3/, the corresponding radius and the pinch velocity of the plasma are 1.42 mm and 1.86 cm//spl mu/s, respectively.