Abstract:
The Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) was independently discovered by J. Mather1 and N. V. Filippov2 in the early 60’s. The DPF represents one of the most interesting and important applications of plasma physics to fusion and multi-radiation sources1-4. Nearly forty years of experiments have demonstrated the ability of (even table-top) DPF devices to produce nuclear fusion reactions in magnetically pinched plasmas. The DPF device has attracted the attention of the research community because of its use as a non-radioactive, pulsed radiation source (10-00 ns) for a variety of applications.

At Kansas State University we designed, installed and characterized a compact 2.5 kJ, powerful, nanosecond, combined neutron and x-ray DPF source facility at the department of mechanical and nuclear engineering. Such a facility may be built and operated at relatively low cost when compared to nuclear reactors or linear accelerator based sources. Moreover, the feasibility of combining neutron and x-ray scanning simultaneously in a single device is a unique advantage of plasma foci.

Due to hydrogen’s effectiveness in slowing neutrons, DPF neutron pulses can be used as radiation probes to detect hydrogenated substances by means of neutron scattering. Examples of potential applications of this radiation are detection of hidden dangerous or illegal substances including drugs, weapons and plastic explosives5 and soil humidity studies6. The intense x-ray pulses produced by bremsstrahlung radiation from localized electron beams and from hot-spots are excellent candidates for radiography of moving or wet objects.

The initial results and the characterization of the radiation output from KSU-DPS will be presented in this presentation.

Brief biography:
Ali Abdou received a B.S. degree in nuclear engineering from the Alexandria University, Egypt in 1992, M.S. in Nuclear Engineering in 2002, M.S. in Computational Sciences in 2003 and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering in 2005 all from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Professor Abdou has over 15 years of experience in the nuclear science and engineering fields. He participated in the design, pre-operation, inauguration and operation of Egypt’s second test and research nuclear reactor ETRR-2 from 1994 to 1999. He is licensed radiation protection and health physicist from Argentinean ENRN and Egyptian NRC in 1996 and 1997 respectively. From 2005 to 2009, he was working as Senior Process Development Engineer at Portland Technology Development, Intel Corporation in the area of plasma etching and semiconductor nanofabrication. He was responsible for the process development of shallow trench isolation for 65nm, 45nm and 32nm nodes. He has wide expertise in plasma processing techniques used in the fabrication and characterization of semiconductor nano/micro structures. In early 2009, he joined the department of mechanical and nuclear engineering at Kansas State University as an assistant professor of nuclear engineering. His current research interests include: development of nano-second compact multi-radiation sources based on the dense plasma focus devices, the research and development of plasma etching in semiconductor nanofabrication, optical emission spectroscopy and x-ray emission from plasmas. Prof. Abdou has authored or co-authored over 30 research publications.