Soft X-ray production with long implosion time (800 ns) aluminum nested wire arrays Z-pinches at Centre d´Etudes de Gramat

Summary form only given. This paper discusses preliminary experiments carried out with the SPHINX generator at CEG and analyzes the potential of these sources with implosion time increased up to 800 ns. SPHINX generator (1MJ stored energy, 1 ms current rise time) is used to implode single or nested aluminum wire arrays in direct drive mode with 3.8 MA maximum current. Different designs of double-shell Z-pinches were tested: outer radius 6 to 7 cm, inner radius 3 to 3.7 cm, outer mass 0.2 to 1.7 mg, inner mass 0.3 to 0.8 mg, outer wires number 16 to 216, inner wires number 48 to 72. The benefit of using nested arrays configuration was proved for the stabilization and reproducibility of the source. The dynamic of the implosion is studied with 1D and 2D visible camera and X-UV time-integrated pin-hole cameras. The X-ray emission is qualified with time resolved resistive bolometry, filtered detectors (diamond PCDs, XRDs) and time integrated crystal spectrometer.