Studies of Gas Puff Z-Pinch Experiments at IFP

Summary form only given. Neon and argon were used as load gas for the Z-pinch experiments on the "yang" accelerator at IFP. And different sets of nozzles were tried out. An ultrafast multi-frame soft X-ray CCD camera was used in these experiments, which can get 10 frames with 10 ns time interval of pinch process at each pinch experiment. Time-integral X-ray pinhole camera and visible streak camera were used in these experiments, too. A laser shearing interferometer (532 nm) was used to catch the image of plasmas. The formation of the initial plasma and discharge channels were observed. Instability was found in the late part of pinch process. In addition shorten rise time of load current and better initial gas puff distribution will reduce these instabilities, make plasma column to compress more quickly and efficiently. More than 1 kJ and 20 GW soft X-ray radiation pulse was detected. Furthermore, more than 4times 10⁷ cm/s imploding speed, and about 12 to 20 compression ratio of plasma column had been obtained. The results and phenomena of these experiments were discussed in this article