Characteristics of a capillary-discharge flash x-ray generator

The fundamental experiments for measuring soft x-ray characteristics from the vacuum capillary are described. These experiments are primarily performed in order to generate line spectra such as x-ray lasers. The generator consists of a high-voltage power supply, a polarity-inversion ignitron pulse generator, a turbo-molecular pump, and a radiation tube with a capillary. A high-voltage condenser of 0.2 muF in the pulse generator is charged up to 20 kV by the power supply, and the electric charges in the condenser are discharged to the capillary in the tube after closing the ignitron. During the discharge, weakly ionized plasma forms on the inner and outer sides of a capillary. In the present work, the pump evacuates air from the tube with a pressure of about 1 mPa, and a demountable capillary was developed in order to measure x-ray spectra according to changes in the capillary length. In this capillary, the anode (target) and cathode elements can be changed corresponding to the objectives. The capillary diameter is 2.0 mm, and the length is adjusted from 1 to 50 mm. When a capillary with aluminum anode and cathode electrodes was employed, both the cathode voltage and the discharge current almost displayed damped oscillations. The peak values of the voltage and current increased when the charging voltage was increased, and their maximum values were -10.8 kV and 4.7 kA, respectively. The x-ray durations observed by a 1.6 mum aluminum filter were less than 30 mus, and we detected the aluminum characteristic x-ray intensity using a 6.8 mum aluminum filter. In the spectrum measurement, two sets of aluminum and titanium electrodes were employed, and we observed multi-line spectra. The line photon energies seldom varied according to changes in the condenser charging voltage and to changes in the electrode element. In the case where the titanium electrode was employed, the line number decreased with corresponding decreases in the capillary length. Compared with incoherent visible light, these rays from the capillary were diffracted greatly after pass through two slits.