Plasma formation in a gas-liner pinch

A gas-liner pinch is optimised for Stark broadening investigations. To obtain the desired discharge conditions the gas injection, the preionisation and geometrical aspects of the discharge chamber are analysed. Quantitative agreement is found between the observed plasma compression and a 'snow-plough' model. The density distribution of the compressed plasma column is derived from double exposure holograms. The peak electron density N_e approximately=10¹⁸ cm^-3; the temperature gives kT_e approximately=10 eV.