X-pinch applications in X-ray radiography and design of compact table-top X-pinch device

The initial stage of wire-array Z-pinch by x-ray backlighting using the X-pinch driven by PPG-I, a pulsed power generator with a current of 400 kA in amplitude and 100 ns in pulse width, as x-ray source. The backlighting images show clearly the processes similar to those occurring in the initial stages of a cylindrical wire-array Z-pinch, including the electric explosion of single wires characterized by the dense wire cores surrounded by the low-density coronal plasma, the expansion of the exploding wire, the sausage instability (m=0) in the coronal plasma around each wire, the motion of the coronal plasma as well as the wire core toward to the current centroid, the formation of the precursor plasma column with a twist structure something like that of higher mode instability, especially the kink instability (m=1). For another application, X-pinch was used as X-ray source for the phase-contrast imaging of a weakly X-ray-absorbing mosquito and an image with high contrast was obtained. In order to make the X-pinch device to be used conveniently as x-ray source for phase-contrast imaging, we designed a compact table-top X-pinch device which can be placed on a 2 m×1.1 m flat worktable with four wheels.