Enhanced magnetic energy released in solid-state and plasma loads on a nanosecond pulse power generator

Abstract

The requirements on lossless power transport through vacuum interface and MITL's limit from above the physical volume and hence inductance of the vacuum part of pulse power generators. This in turn limits the generator-to-load energy coupling and hence the magnetic energy available in vacuum loads used in high energy density physics research. We obtained on Zebra generator (1.9 Ohm, 1 MA, 100 ns) an enhanced load magnetic energy corresponding to the load current increase from the nominal 0.95 MA to 1.65 (plusmn0.05) MA. This improvement was achieved without changing the generator architecture, but through better generator-to-load energy coupling using the new Load Current Multipliers (LCM) technique. The average experimental load-to-generator current amplitude ratio in LCM with both a 7 nH constant-inductance load and with z-pinch loads was 1.7plusmn0.2. We report on new generator electrotechnical parameters with LCM and on characterization of the plasma dynamics and radiative properties of planar wire-array z-pinches at the achieved enhanced load magnetic energy level.