A portable X-pinch design for x-ray diagnostics of warm dense matter

We describe the design and x-ray emission properties (temporal, spatial, and spectral) of Dry Pinch I, a portable X-pinch driver developed at Imperial College London. Dry Pinch I is a direct capacitor discharge device, 300 × 300 × 700 mm3 in size and ∼50 kg in mass, that can be used as an external driver for x-ray diagnostics in high-energy-density physics experiments. Among key findings, the device is shown to reliably produce 1.1 ± 0.3 ns long x-ray bursts that couple ∼50 mJ of energy into photon energies from 1 to 10 keV. The average shot-to-shot jitter of these bursts is found to be 10 ± 4.6 ns using a combination of x-ray and current diagnostics. The spatial extent of the x-ray hot spot from which the radiation emanates agrees with previously published results for X-pinches—suggesting a spot size of 10 ± 6 µm in the soft energy region (1–10 keV) and 190 ± 100 µm in the hard energy region (>10 keV). These characteristics mean that Dry Pinch I is ideally suited for use as a probe in experiments driven in the laboratory or at external facilities when more conventional sources of probing radiation are not available. At the same time, this is also the first detailed investigation of an X-pinch operating reliably at current rise rates of less than 1 kA/ns

Multiframe point-projection radiography imaging based on hybrid X-pinch

This paper demonstrates the possibility of using a new configuration of the hybrid X-pinch to produce a set of spatially and temporarily separate x-ray bursts that could be used for the radiography of dynamic events. To achieve this, a longer than normal wire is placed between the conical electrodes of the hybrid X-pinch, and a set of small spacers (fishing weights) is placed along the wire. Each subsection of the wire then acts as a unique X-pinch, producing its own radiation burst from a small (∼3 µm) spot. The timing between bursts is 20–50 ns, and each is <2 ns in duration. For comparison, if a longer wire is simply employed without spacers, hotspots of radiation occur in random positions and the time between any two bursts does not exceed 20 ns. Examples of two and three frame point-projection radiography of solid-state and plasma test objects are given

X-pinch X-ray emission on a portable low-current, fast rise-time generator

We report on experiments exploring X-ray emission from an X-pinch driven by a small Marx-waterline generator supplying 50 kA with a risetime of 50 ns and a peak voltage of ∼250 kV. Both standard crossed wire loads and hybrid loads utilizing conical metal electrodes with a single short wire in between them were studied, and in both cases reliable modes of operation were obtained for X-ray radiography. Soft (few keV) and Hard (>5 keV) X-ray emission characteristics were observed. With standard X-pinches, soft radiation emanated from a small hot spot about 3 μm in size, along with hard radiation from a ∼200 μm region close to this hot spot. With hybrid X-pinches, the hot spot was <7 μm in size. There was a clear correlation between the soft and hard X-ray emission—pinches that produced intense soft X-ray emission from a small hot spot also produced the most intense, localized hard X-ray emission

Plasma formation in metallic wire Z pinches

Plasma formation in metallic wire Z pinches is modeled using a two-dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamics code. Modified Thomas-Fermi equations of state and dense plasma transport coefficients allow the phase transitions from solid to plasma to be approximated. Results indicate the persistence of a two-component structure with a cold, dense core embedded within a much hotter, low density, m=0 unstable corona. Extensive benchmark testing against data from a number of single-wire experiments is presented. Artificial laser schlieren and x-ray back-lighting images generated from the code data are compared directly to experimental results. The results were found to be insensitive to inaccuracies in the equations of state and transport coefficients. Simulations of individual wires in a wire array show different behavior to that observed experimentally due to the absence of three-dimensional effects. Simulations with similar conditions to wires in an array show a general trend in the plasma structure at start of implosion from discrete wires with large m=0 perturbation amplitudes to partially merged wires with smaller perturbation amplitudes as the number of wires is increased. Results for a wire number scan with aluminum wire arrays on the SATURN generator suggest that the observed sharp transition to high x-ray power at around 40 wires corresponds to a sharp decrease in m=0 perturbation amplitude and hence a sharp decrease in the seed perturbation for the Rayleigh-Taylor instability