Investigation of soft x-ray emission from the plasma focus.

Plasma focus devices are capable of producing dense high Z plasmas with a lifetime of about 10 ns by shock compression. Spectral, temporal and spatial characteristics of the emitting plasma are reported. Results are presented and compared to scaling laws. Soft x-ray emission from these plasmas are of special interest for several applications. Investigation of the x-ray emission spectra show that nitrogen and neon are fully ionized, argon becomes heliumlike and krypton neonlike. The diameter of the emitting region depends on the atomic number of the gas. Maximum spectral brightness is achieved by resonance lin s.