Experimental researches on single aluminum planar-wire-array Z-pinches on Qiangguang generator

Planar wire arrays Z pinches were conducted on Qiangguang generator (1.5 MA, 100 ns). The loads in the experiments varied their row widths (6-24 mm) and wire numbers (10-34). The scaling of the implosion times, radiation yields and power with the parameter of the loads, such as array masses, inter-wire gaps, and array widths were investigated. The images of the soft X-ray camera show that the trailing mass, precursor column, and R-T instability exist during the implosion phase, and kink instability will occur and rapidly develop after stagnation. The experimental results show that the product of the line mass and the square row width is a critical factor. This factor can affect the implosion times and the X-ray products of wire arrays with different parameters, the optimum range is 200∼400 μg·cm for Qiangguang generator. The results also imply that the inter-wire gap should be smaller than 1 mm. The maximum X-ray total energy is 22 kJ with the peak power 630 GW while the maximum K-shell product is 3.9 kJ with 158 GW. (authors)