Characteristics of exploding-wire plasmas

The exploding wire phenomenon is investigated in the energy range above and below the energy density required for complete wire evaporation. For lower energy densities, a macroscopic fragmentation of the wire into particles of tens of micrometers in size occurs; above the evaporation-inducing energy density, however, the fragment size tends to atomic dimensions, and at sufficiently high energy an explosive vaporization occurs which yields a high temperature plasma. During the explosion, plasma is in a nonequilibrium state with temperatures as high as 10 eV or higher, attaining equilibrium in tens of nsec. Plasma density is noted to increase with energy density. These plasmas are of interest in particle beam, laser, and fast switching system research.