Titanium plasma source for capillary discharge extreme ultraviolet lasers

Abstract

A technique to generate jets of pure Titanium plasma is presented. A Ti wire is exploded in an Alumina capillary sealed with 1atm. of air inside. The generated plasma emerges from the capillary (to a high-vacuum environment) by ripping a thin Ti foil that seals one of the capillary ends. The generated plasma jets have a velocity of up to $4.5\pm0.5mm/\mu s$, an electron temperature of $1.5\pm0.5eV$ and a ion density of $2.7\pm1\times10^{17}/cc$. The plasma source was designed for a capillary discharge extreme ultraviolet laser experiment, but might also be useful to other application such as a target for Z-pinch experiments.