Current sheath formation in the plasma focus

Abstract

The shaping and formation of the current sheath takes place in the breakdown phase of a plasma focus device. Achieving a clear understanding of the current sheath formation process is important because the plasma focus device performance depends on the quality of this sheath. In this paper, we created and successfully run an electromagnetic particle in cell code to simulate the breakdown phase. Magnetic effects are self-consistently incorporated in this formalism, allowing us to carry the simulation all the way to the point prior to breakdown.