Two different modes of wire explosion for nano-powder production

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Control and Simulation of Power System and Generation Equipment, Tsinghua University - Beijing 100084, China
² Department of Physics and Chemistry, College of Physics, North China University of Technology Beijing 100144, China

^a juxb@tsinghua.edu.cn

Received: 17 November 2011
Accepted: 2 January 2012

Abstract

Based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, we report on the first observation of two different modes of wire explosion for nanosized powder production in 5–30 kPa ambient gas, depending on the property of wire material. For wire material with relatively high resistivity, such as titanium, more than one vapor burst was observed. While for wire material with relatively low resistivity, such as copper, the whole wire would explode totally within one single vapor burst.