Dense Z-pinch of solid material with high atomic number

Summary form only given. The temporal and spectral behavior of X-ray emission from a metal-coated carbon-fiber pinch has been investigated. Temporal change in the X-ray emission was found to have two peaks. The first peak, appearing in the current rising phase, was the emission from the pinched hot plasma with an electron temperature of 300 eV. The second peak, observed at the phase of current maximum, had an energy greater than 1.5 keV. The emission was produced by a nonthermal process caused by magnetohydrodynamic instabilities. The initial stage of the carbon fiber pinch, in which ionization and formation of a current path are developing at the surface of the fiber, determines the following pinch evolution. A small energy pulsed discharge was applied prior to the main discharge in order to control the inital stage. When the timing between the two discharges was optimized, the first peak amplitude of the X-ray emission became four times as large as that from the pinch without the predischarge.