Sustained neutron production from a sheared-flow stabilized Z-pinch

Abstract

The sheared-flow stabilized $Z$-pinch has demonstrated long-lived plasmas with fusion-relevant parameters. This Letter presents the first experimental results demonstrating sustained, quasi-steady-state neutron production from the Fusion $Z$-pinch Experiment (FuZE), operated with a mixture of 20% deuterium/80% hydrogen by volume. Neutron emissions lasting approximately $5\mu$s are reproducibly observed with pinch currents of approximately $200$ kA during an approximately $16\mu$s period of plasma quiescence. The average neutron yield is estimated to be $\left(1.25\pm 0.45\right)\times 10^5$ neutrons/pulse and scales with the square of the deuterium concentration. Coincident with the neutron signal, plasma temperatures of $1-2$ keV, and densities of approximately $10^{17}$ cm${}^{-3}$ with $0.3$ cm pinch radii are measured with fully-integrated diagnostics.

arXiv comment5 pages and 6 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Experimental characterization of railgun-driven supersonic plasma jets motivated by high energy density physics applications
• Design, construction, and characterization of a compact DD neutron generator designed for 40Ar/39Ar geochronology

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