Powerful Source of Soft X-Ray Radiation Based on Z-Pinch of Nested Arrays for Experiments in High-Energy Density Physics

Abstract

The results of research on the creation of a powerful source of soft X-ray radiation (SXR, hν > 100 eV) based on the Z-pinch of compact nested arrays are presented. One of the applications of such an SXR source can be radiation ablation of targets made of various substances in experiments on high-energy density physics and extreme states of matter, which are currently being actively carried out worldwide. Experiments are carried out on plasma implosion of combined nested arrays with different ratios of array radii at a discharge current level of up to 3.5 MA at the pulse power facility Angara-5-1. The outer array consisted of fibers of a substance with a low atomic number (polypropylene) and the inner array consisted of a substance with a high atomic number (tungsten). It is shown that in the case of nested arrays of this design, it is possible to obtain a significant (~1.4 times) increase in the peak SXR power compared to single W arrays with the same parameters as the W array in the inner array. At the same time, spectral data obtained using a “flat field” grazing incidence spectrograph demonstrate a significant decrease in the fraction of tungsten ions in the trailing plasma around the pinch of nested arrays. By optimizing the linear mass of the outer array and its radius, powerful and short SXR pulses with amplitude of ~10 TW, energy of ~130 kJ and duration of ~4–5 ns are obtained. This made it possible to increase the incident power density and fluence on the target up to 1.55 TW/cm² and 17 kJ/cm², respectively, in experiments on extreme states of matter currently being carried out at the facility.