This article is cited in 17 papers

Plasma mass-charge composition of a vacuum arc with deuterium saturated zirconium cathode

G. Yu. Yushkov^a, A. G. Nikolaev^a, V. P. Frolova^a, E. M. Oks^ab, G. S. Rumyantsev^c, S. A. Barengol'ts<sup>de

a</sup> Institute of High Current Electronics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk
^b Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics
^c All-Russia Research Institute of Automatics named after N L Dukhov, Moscow
^d Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
^e P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

Abstract: An experimental study of the mass-charge composition of a vacuum arc plasma with zirconium cathode saturated with deuterium is carried out. It is shown that this system provides effective generation of deuterium ions with an integral fraction of about 60% per pulse of an arc current. The deuterium content in a vacuum arc plasma is maximum in the initial stage of discharge burning and considerably decreases during the first 150 $\mu$s of an arc current pulse. The cathode deuteration also leads to decreasing average ion charge of metallic substrate in the plasma of a vacuum arc discharge.

Received: 26.06.2014

 English version: Technical Physics Letters, 2014, 40:12, 1072–1074

Bibliographic databases:

•