Liner-converter experiment on AMBIORIX

A new way to transform a quite large part of magnetic energy stored in a Z-pinch plasma into X-rays, was first proposed by L. Rudakov [1]: using an axial magnetic field Bz, a large part of the energy is expected to be transferred by axial electron conductivity to a converter which is placed perpendicularly to the axis of the plasma in order to produce a bright soft X-rays source. In this paper, experimental results obtained on the “AMBIORIX” generator are presented. A hollow cylindrical liner of Helium is driven by a current reaching 2 MA in 50 ns. The implosion is studied with and without axial magnetic field, a steady regime of implosion is observed using Bz= 0.3 T. The plasma parameters and the heating of an aluminium converter are measured using various diagnostics. In the discussion part, the detailed analysis of experimental data and their comparison with numerical simulations are given.