Ablation of electrode surfaces in high power diodes

The ablation of electrode surfaces has been observed for several materials illuminated by radiation from an imploding wire array. The experiments were done on the PITHON 5-TW generator. A plasma boundary at ne=5×1018/cm3 expands at velocities up to 10 cm/μs from the surface. Calculations suggest early vacuum-ultraviolet radiation ablates the electrode surface. Hydrogen is the dominant element forming a coating on the electrode surface.