  Ion-beam-plasma-interaction plays an important role in the field of Warm
Dense Matter (WDM) and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). A spherical theta
pinch is proposed to act as a plasma target in various applications including a
plasma stripper cell. One key parameter for such applications is the free
electron density. A linear dependency of this density to the amount of energy
transferred into the plasma from an energy storage was found by C. Teske. Since
the amount of stored energy is known, the energy transfer efficiency is a
reliable parameter for the design of a spherical theta pinch device. The
traditional two models of energy transfer efficiency are based on assumptions
which comprise the risk of systematical errors. To obtain precise results, this
paper proposes a new model without the necessity of any assumption to calculate
the energy transfer efficiency for an inductively coupled plasma device.
Further, a comparison of these three different models is given at a fixed
operation voltage for the full range of working gas pressures. Due to the
inappropriate assumptions included in the traditional models, one owns a
tendency to overestimate the energy transfer efficiency whereas the other leads
to an underestimation. Applying our new model to a wide spread set of operation
voltages and gas pressures, an overall picture of the energy transfer
efficiency results.

Plasma Physics