Multicolor, time-gated, soft x-ray pinhole imaging of wire array and gas puff Z pinches on the Z and Saturn pulsed power generators.
A multicolor, time-gated, soft x-ray pinhole imaging instrument is fielded as part of the core diagnostic set on the 25 MA Z machine [M. E. Savage et al., in Proceedings of the Pulsed Power Plasma Sciences Conference (IEEE, New York, 2007), p. 979] for studying intense wire array and gas puff Z-pinch soft x-ray sources. Pinhole images are reflected from a planar multilayer mirror, passing 277 eV photons with <10 eV bandwidth. An adjacent pinhole camera uses filtration alone to view 1-10 keV photons simultaneously. Overlaying these data provides composite images that contain both spectral as well as spatial information, allowing for the study of radiation production in dense Z-pinch plasmas. Cu wire arrays at 20 MA on Z show the implosion of a colder cloud of material onto a hot dense core where K-shell photons are excited. A 528 eV imaging configuration has been developed on the 8 MA Saturn generator [R. B. Spielman et al., and A. I. P. Conf, Proc. 195, 3 (1989)] for imaging a bright Li-like Ar L-shell line. Ar gas puff Z pinches show an intense K-shell emission from a zippering stagnation front with L-shell emission dominating as the plasma cools.
Jones
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Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 8718, USA. bmjones@sandia.gov
Coverdale
C A
CA
Nielsen
D S
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Jones
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MC
Deeney
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Serrano
J D
JD
Nielsen-Weber
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Meyer
C J
CJ
Apruzese
J P
JP
Clark
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Coleman
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