Flashboard plasma characterization by optical diagnostics

Summary form only given. The plasma produced by a 10-cm × 12-cm flashboard is being characterized by nonintrusive optical diagnostics, with time and spatial resolution. The experimental setup was designed to reproduce the geometrical configuration of a plasma opening switch (POS) under investigation in a parallel research project so that the flashboard may be moved later to the POS experiment. Emission spectroscopy of C⁺ at 4647 angstrom and C⁺⁺ at 2297 angstrom, 2177 angstrom, and 2163 angstrom will be used to measure and calculate, through a computer code, the plasma density and temperature from the flashboard with time resolution, averaged along an optical path parallel to the flashboard surface. Laser-induced fluorescence techniques will be used to improve the spatial resolution in plasma characterization, keeping a similar time resolution. An excimer-laser-pumped dye laser will be used to excite transitions in impurity atoms added to the plasma. The emission will be measured perpendicular to the laser beam using the emission spectroscopy setup, the intersection between the laser beam direction and the spectrometer optical axis defining a point in the plasma.