Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Nov 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996aps..dpp.1rv01m&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, Division of Plasma Physics Meeting, November 10-15, 1996, abstract #1RV.01
Physics
Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Fast z-pinch implosions can convert more than 10% of the stored electrical energy in a pulsed-power accelerator into x rays. These x rays are produced when an imploding cylindrical plasma, driven by the magnetic field pressure associated with very large axial currents, stagnates upon the cylindrical axis of symmetry. On the Saturn pulsed-power accelerator at Sandia National Laboratories, for example, currents of 6 to 8 MA with a risetime of less than 50 ns are driven through cylindrically-symmetric loads (typically gas jets, arrays of wires, thin foils, or low density foams), producing implosions velocities as high as 100 cm/μs and x-ray energies as high as 500 kJ. The keV component of the resulting x-ray spectrum has been used for many years as a source for material response studies. Alternatively, the x-ray output can be thermalized into a near-Planckian x-ray source by containing it within a large cylindrical radiation case (a hohlraum). These large volume ( 6000 mm^3), long-lived ( 20 ns) radiation sources have recently been used for ICF-relevant ablator physics experiments as well as astrophysical opacity and radiation-material interaction experiments. Magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities and load symmetry are critical, limiting factors in determining the assembled plasma densities and temperatures, and thus in the x-ray pulsewidths that can be produced on these accelerators. In recent experiments on the Saturn accelerator, these implosion nonuniformities have been minimized by using uniform-fill gas puff loads or by using wire arrays with as many a 192 wires. These techniques produced significant improvements in the pinched plasma quality, reproducibility, and x-ray output power. X-ray pulsewidths of less than 5 ns and peak powers of 75?10 TW have been achieved with arrays of 120 tungsten wires. These powers represent greater than a factor of three in power amplification over the electrical power of the accelerator, and are a record for x-ray powers in the laboratory. When the modification to enable z-pinch implosions on PBFA II is completed, x-ray energies in excess of 1.5 MJ at powers in excess of 150 TW should be reached. These intense x-ray sources offer the potential for performing many new basic physics and fusion-relevant experiments. *This work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC04- 94AL85000.
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