Design, construction and the first experiments on the Amirkabir Plasma Focus (APF) facility

A new low-cost Mather-type plasma focus facility (16 kV, 36 μf and 115 nH) was designed and constructed for the first time in Iran. The conceptual design of the device performed by MATLAB is based on the three-phase theory of the plasma focus mechanism. We tried to design a convenient control unit which automatically controls charge–discharge processes. Optimum pressures at various applied voltages, a linear dependence between the plasma pinch current and applied voltage at the optimum pressure with Ar and Ne as working gases and also the focusing time proportional to the gas pressure with Ar were obtained experimentally. Hard X-ray signals tended to decrease with the pressure when Ne was puffed into the chamber.