Magnetic field measurements on the self magnetic pinch diode at SNL using Zeeman splitting

Self-Magnetic Pinch (SMP) diode experiments are in progress at the RITS-6 accelerator (5–11MV, 100–200kA) at Sandia National Laboratories. Te SMP diode is a flash x-ray radiography source with a radiation pulse length of 30–45 ns, dependent on the diode configuration. A hollow cathode emits electrons through an approximately 1cm vacuum A-K gap onto a high Z material. The high current (∼150kA) compresses the electron beam to sub 3mm spot sizes
¹
. Visible spectra of diode plasma have been taken along the anode surface by both directly imaging onto a 0.3 m spectrometer and by using a lens coupled 11×1 fiber array, imaged onto a 0.15 m spectrometer. During the radiation pulse, the spectra contains carbon and aluminum lines, along with H-alpha. The H-alpha line has been used previously to characterize the plasma density as between 10
¹⁷
–10
¹⁸
cm
⁻³
, during the peak of the radiation pulse, dependent on distance from the axis of the diode.