Determination of the mass distribution in a gas puff by laser induced fluorescence

Recently, experiments have shown that laser induced fluorescence (LIF) can be a useful diagnostic for determining the mass distribution from a gas puff system used in z-pinch plasma radiation sources [B. H. Failor et al., February 2003]. In this work we report on our efforts to develop a LIF system, using nitric oxide (NO) as the tracer, to determine the mass distribution in the gas puff nozzle assembly used in [B. H. Failor et al., February 2003]. The same assembly has also been extensively studied at NRL using laser interferometry [Y. Song et al, 2000]. Preliminary results indicate that the NO-LIF, laser interferometry and the previous LIF results agree to within 20%. Concentrations of NO less than 0.1% can be used.