Design, construction and optimization of Thomson parabola spectrometer as a diagnostic tool in plasma focus device

Abstract

One of the main requirements in plasma focus researches is determination of the type and energy range of the produced ions in order to use them in applications and theoretical research activities. Furthermore, Thomson Parabola Spectrometer (TPS) is a very useful tool for measuring ion energy spectrum in a complex radiation field. At first, a typical TPS was built and tested. Then due to bugs in the prototype, a new TPS was designed and constructed with more accuracy and resolution. Some experiments were performed on the two different plasma focus devices by both spectrometers. The results of the new device showed a good performance in separating ions. The two types of CST and SRIM software were used to simulate different parts of this device. The results of the simulations and experiments showed a good agreement and the reliability of CST software for ion beam transport in TPS systems. CST enables us to set the parameters of the system before an experiment and also to diagnose the ions after the experiment.

Keywords

• plasma focus device
• thomson parabola spectrometer
• cts software