Publications Details

Observation of instability growth in a copper Z-pinch target using two-color monochromatic X-ray backlighting

Sinars, Daniel; Wenger, D.F.; Peterson, K.J.; Slutz, Stephen A.; Herrmann, Mark H.; Yu, Edmund; Cuneo, Michael E.; Smith, Ian C.; Atherton, B.; Porter, John L.

Existing monochromatic X-ray backlighting diagnostics at 1.865 and 6.151 keV have been combined to create a two-color monochromatic X-ray backlighting diagnostic. The use of different photon energies can allow a much broader range of areal densities to be observed in a single experiment. Here, we apply the two-color backlighter to the study of instability growth on the outside edge of an initially solid copper rod target driven by a 100-ns rise-time current pulse with a peak value of 20 MA. The different opacity of Cu at these two photon energies allows a dynamic range of ∼1600x to be surveyed instead of ∼60x (assuming a useful transmission range of 5%-95%). © 2006 IEEE.