Design of a Passive Shock Break-Out Diagnostic on the Z Facility

Summary form only given. Shock propagation velocity in Al witness plates is a well established method for diagnosing radiation temperature environments in laser driven hohlraums. The same principles can be applied to infer radiation environments in the Z-pinch driven dynamic hohlraum. Here we present the initial design of a passive shock break-out (PSBO) diagnostic on the Z facility at Sandia National Laboratories. Visible light emission from the shock break-out is captured through an achromatic lens assembly and imaged onto a linear array of single mode optical fiber. The light is transferred down ~50 ft. of fiber-optic, and imaged through a narrow-width band-pass filter onto an LCA-4 streak camera. Due to its close-proximity to the Z-pinch target, the front-end imaging assembly of the PSBO system is designed to be replaced on every experiment. The first test of this system has demonstrated the capability to capture a ~1 eV break-out signal from Al steps as thick as 90 mum, thereby showing promise as a radiation temperature diagnostic on the dynamic hohlraum