Scaling of bright spots in X pinches from 1 MA TO 6 MA

Summary form only given. Numerous plasma pinch devices have reported the presence of brief, intense, soft x-ray bursts from tiny regions of plasma that are variously called “bright spots,” “hot spots,” or “micropinches.” The X-pinch load geometry was originally conceived as a method to study the formation and properties of bright spots in z-pinch plasmas. X-pinch plasmas driven by 0.2 MA can form bright spots that are 0.8-1.5 microns in diameter, have temperatures of about 1 keV, densities >;10% of solid density, and last for 10-100 ps. These conditions are believed to result from the direct magnetic compression of radiating matter. Physical models that capture the behavior of 0.2 MA X pinches predict more extreme parameters at currents >;1 MA. We will present X-pinch research from the 6 MA SATURN facility. A large portion of this work was devoted to finding load designs that would scale well to higher currents and included experiments at 1 MA. Source sizes of 5-8 microns were observed in SATURN experiments along with evidence for high temperatures (several keV) and short time durations (<;500 ps). These radiation sources were also considerably brighter than spots generated at 0.2 MA. We are continuing to examine the implications of these observations.