X-ray backlighting of two-wire Z-pinch plasma using X-pinch

• Published in: Chinese physics B Vol. 19; no. 7; pp. 382 - 386
• Main Author: 赵彤 邹晓兵 张然 王新新
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing 01.07.2010
• Subjects: X射线源; Z箍缩等离子体; 不稳定性; 爆炸过程; 电脉冲; 等离子体密度; 等离子体柱
• ISSN: 1674-1056; 2058-3834
• DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/19/7/075205

Two 50-μm Mo wires in parallel used as a Z-pinch load are electrically exploded with a pulsed current rising to 275 kA in 125 ns and their explosion processes are backlighted using an X-pinch as an x-ray source. The backlighting images show clearly the processes similar to those occurring in the initial stages of a cylindrical wire-array Z-pinch, including the electric explosion of single wires characterised by the dense wire cores surrounded by a low-density coronal plasma, the expansion of the exploding wire, the sausage instability （m = 0） in the coronal plasma around each wire, the motion of the coronal plasma as well as the wire core toward the current centroid, the formation of the precursor plasma column with a twist structure something like that of higher mode instability, especially the kink instability （m = 1）.