Magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability mitigation in large-diameter gas puff Z-pinch implosions

Journal Article · Fri Feb 15 04:00:00 EST 2008 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2839346· OSTI ID:21103825

Qi, N; Sze, H; Failor, B H; Banister, J; Levine, J S; Riordan, J C; Steen, P; Sincerny, P ^[1]; Lojewski, D ^[2]

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1. L-3 Communications Pulse Sciences, San Leandro, California 94577 (United States)
2. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87117 (United States)

Recently, a new approach for efficiently generating K-shell x-rays in large-diameter, long-implosion time, structured argon gas Z-pinches has been demonstrated based on a 'pusher-stabilizer-radiator' model. In this paper, direct observations of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability mitigation of a 12-cm diameter, 200-ns implosion time argon Z-pinch using a laser shearing interferometer (LSI) and a laser wavefront analyzer (LWA) are presented. Using a zero-dimensional snowplow model, the imploding plasma trajectories are calculated with the driver current waveforms and the initial mass distributions measured using the planar laser induced fluorescence method. From the LSI and LWA images, the plasma density and trajectory during the implosion are measured. The measured trajectory agrees with the snowplow calculations. The suppression of hydromagnetic instabilities in the ''pusher-stabilizer-radiator'' structured loads, leading to a high-compression ratio, high-yield Z-pinch, is discussed. For comparison, the LSI and LWA images of an alternative load (without stabilizer) show the evolution of a highly unstable Z-pinch.

• OSTI ID: 21103825
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 15; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ARGON
COMPRESSION RATIO
FLUORESCENCE
IMPLOSIONS
LASERS
MASS DISTRIBUTION
PLASMA
PLASMA DENSITY
PLASMA DIAGNOSTICS
RADIATORS
RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY
WAVE FORMS
X RADIATION
X-RAY SOURCES