Metal double puff Z-pinch implosions

Summary form only given. Metal puff Z pinch^1,2 allows to study many phenomenon related to the suppression of the Z pinch instabilities. In this type of system, the outer and inner cylindrical shells are produced by plasma guns. Each gun initiates a vacuum arc operating between metal electrodes. The electric circuit permits to vary independently the linear mass of the inner and outer shells. The linear mass can be varied from 10 up to 80 μg/cm. This study presents the experiments with Mg and Al metal puff. The IMRI-5 generator was used as a z-pinch driver. The generator produced a damped sinusoidal current pulse of amplitude 450 kA with a 450-ns quarter period rise time. During the study we varied the ratio between the mass of the inner and the outer shell and found the ratio that is the optimal from the point of view the maximal compression. The spectral measurements showed that the electron temperature was about 800 eV for a Mg metal puff with the compression ratio of 30.