X-ray backlight imaging in Z-pinch

A novel X-ray backlight imaging system has been developed to obtain diagnostic information about implosion targets, wire-array Z-pinch implosions and ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability. The key component of the imaging system is the spherically bent quartz (1 0 1 0) crystal with a curvature radius of 143 mm. The imaging system is capable of the two-dimensional, spatially resolved, monochromatic backlight imaging. A monochromatic X-ray backlight imaging experiment using the imaging system was performed for the first time on the “Yang” accelerator at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics. The plasma from implosion of aluminium wire arrays was used as the backlighting source. The X-ray film obtained the two-dimensional backlight mesh imaging of He-like aluminium ions. The experimental results show that the X-ray backlight imaging system provides an approximate 75 μm spatial resolution at a 9 mm×20 mm field of view. The backlight imaging system is adequate for monochromatic X-ray backlighting imaging diagnosis on the “Yang” accelerator.