Speaker
Description
In order to reach higher energies, next generation plasma accelerators will use multi-meter plasma technology. Many applications will also require high repetition rates to obtain high average fluxes comparable to conventional radiofrequency accelerators. These long-scale plasmas are not trivial to produce due to the very high power requirements for gas ionisation.
We present the construction and diagnosis of a 1 m argon discharge plasma cell designed as a source for plasma wakefield accelerator experiments. By implementing an all solid-state high voltage power supply and switch, an arc discharge plasma with currents up to 350 A was produced using voltages up to 9 kV at repetition rates up to 2 Hz. The plasma was diagnosed using plasma emission spectroscopy and temporally-resolved longitudinal interferometry. The source achieved plasma densities in the range 10^20 – 10^21 m^-3, which are suitable for PWFA applications.
