Guest Editorial Special Issue on Z-Pinches

There has been significant progress made in the field of pulsed power driven Z-pinches since the first Special Issue was published in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science in August 1998. The community has grown significantly, with more universities getting involved in this exciting area of research, which includes fusion targets, astrophysical plasmas, intense X-ray sources, and materials science, among others. Z-pinches use a variety of loads, for example, foils, gas puffs, and wire arrays for these applications. Other pinch configurations, namely, plasma foci, X-pinches, and capillary discharges, have also been used as neutron sources, backlighters, and radiation sources. New diagnostics have been developed, that probe the Z-pinch plasma with high temporal and spatial resolution not previously possible. Examples include protons produced from shortpulse high-intensity laser–matter interactions to probe the Z-pinch plasmas and spectroscopy of Doppler shifts. Furthermore, advanced computational capabilities (Hydra, LSP, Lasnex, Alegra, Gorgon, Mach2-TCRE, Perseus) have been applied to study the underlying physics of the pinch plasmas.