Comprehensive Study on Soft X-Ray Emission from Admixtures of Nitrogen and Neon Gases in the APF Plasma Focus Device

The present work is an investigation on the effect of working gas composition as well as applied voltage and operating pressure on the behavior of SXR emitted from the APF device. Three volumetric ratios(90:10), (75:25), and (50:50) of nitrogen:neon (N₂:Ne) admixture were used with operating conditions at applied voltages of 11, 12, and 13 kV and operating pressures of 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, and 5 torr. Using (N₂:Ne) gas mixture ratios of (90:10) and (75:25) and at applied voltage of 11 kV, the optimum pressure for maximum intensity of SXR was 3.5 torr. However, for the percentage of (50:50), it shifts to higher pressure of 4 torr. At higher applied voltages of 12 and 13 kV, the optimum pressures shift to higher values, 4 torr for both volumetric ratios (90:10) and (75:25), and 4.5 torr for the ratio of (50:50). It was found that the intensity of SXR increases with the increase of neon (Ne) percentage in the admixture of (N₂:Ne) and applied voltage. The highest intensity was for the volumetric ratio of (50:50) operating at the voltage of 13 kV. Our results illustrated that mixing neon (Ne) with nitrogen (N₂) as the working gas in the PF is a power source of SXR emission.