Optical emission behaviors of C, Al, Ti, Fe, Cu, Mo, Ag, Ta, and W wire explosions in gaseous media

Electrical explosion of wires (EEW) is a promising method for nanopowders preparation and insensitive explosives ignition. Plasma radiation plays a key role in the ignition process while little attention has been paid on this phenomenon before. This letter introduces optical emission behaviors of electrical explosions for nine materials in air, Helium, and Argon with the SWE-2 platform. Experimental results indicated that the light intensity for non-refractory metals decayed rapidly after the discharge ended. In contrast, for refractory metals, the emission continued to increase and lasted for a long period after the discharge ceased. As for spectra, the emission consisted of line and continuous spectra. With the atomic number increased, the density of lines grew rapidly, leading to a “continuous” appearance.