Multichord optical interferometry of FRX-L’s field reversed configuration

A 0.633μm laser interferometer provides detailed time resolved information about the spatial distribution of the plasma density of field reversed configurations (FRC’s) produced by the FRX-L experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This experiment is an effort to produce a magnetized plasma with closed field lines suitable for compression by a solid metal liner imploded by the Shiva Star capacitor bank at the Air Force Research Laboratory. The interferometer probes a fanned array of eight chords through the FRC midplane, measuring the line integrated free electron density via its effect on optical phase shift relative to eight reference beams as a function of time. The reference beams are given nominally identical optical paths, except that they are folded for compactness and given an 80MHz higher optical frequency by use of a Bragg cell beam splitter. After the beams are recombined, interference results in 80MHz electromagnetic beat waves with dynamic phase shifts equal to those of the corresponding...