Spectroscopic investigation of highly transient pinch plasmas

The temporal evolution of neon pinch plasmas, generated in a 2kJ plasma focus device, has been investigated by x-ray spectroscopic methods for two sets of device parameters. These two sets lead to characteristic differences of the K-shell emission. Stationary models are shown to fail to explain the experimental observations even qualitatively. Transient spectra analysis shows that the characteristic differences observed can be referred to different transient modes of plasma dynamics. The spectra analysis includes beside resonance lines also dielectronic satellites and recombination continua. The results concerning the development of the plasma parameters achieved by the spectra modeling are supported by independent measurements of the time resolved K-shell emission and by optical streak images of the pinch plasma dynamics, which confirms the reliability of the transient spectroscopic analysis presented.