Study of soft X-ray emission during wire array implosion under plasma focus conditions at the PF-3 facility

Update on the Scientific Status of the Plasma Focus

“…Later, similar experiments were also carried out with other types of loads. A thin-walled foam liner with a diameter of 10-20 mm [421,440], tungsten wire arrays [440][441][442][443], fine aluminium wires and deuterated polyethylene fibers [441,444], fine-dispersed submicron alumina dust powder [421,440,441,445], and other loads were employed. The possibility of load compression after the current is switched over from a non-cylindrical PCS to different types of loads was demonstrated in experiments carried out at the PF-3 facility.…”

“…Such a powder is characterized by a fairly low resistance to shear deformation and exhausts uniformly under the action of gravity through a narrow annular slot ~1 mm in width and 6 mm in diameter when the electromagnetic gate is opened. The design of powder source was such that parameters of dust targets (the diameter and the linear mass) were close to those of foam liners and wire arrays used in PF experiments [443]. A distinctive feature of a dust target is that its mass is distributed over the entire target volume, so its average mass density is fairly low (in this sense, such a target is similar to a porous target).…”

“…It has been demonstrated that, in the presence of a tungsten wire array in a PF discharge, the power and energy of X-ray emission in the spectral range from 100 eV to 1 keV increases at least three to four times as compared to the compression of a conventional neon PCS [443]. Estimates show that, at a discharge current of~1 MA, the linear SXR (hν < 1 keV) power and energy generated by the wire array z-pinch amount to 6-20 GW/cm and 4-13 kJ/cm, respectively.…”