Time-resolved temperature measurement of a pinched plasma using the dispersive x-ray analysis of the continuum emission.

The dispersive analysis of the x-ray continuum is employed to determine the electron temperature of a dense pinched plasma. A curved crystal spectrometer was used to obtain the desired dispersion, and two or more p-i-n (doubly diffused silicon) diodes were used to monitor the time-resolved emission. The dispersive technique is inherently more accurate than filtering techniques and simpler to implement than laser scattering techniques. In an experimental verification of the technique, the time-resolved temperature of a plasma focus pinch was measured under various conditions, and was found to be consistent with density observations and MHD calculations. It was possible to observe the cooling effect of radiation emission from seeded plasma focus discharges. The elliptical crystal spectrometer is shown to be well suited to the analysis of the x-ray emission from a pinched plasma source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]