A preliminary experiment on x-pinch

Summary form only given. X-pinch plasma is a good soft X-ray source. It emits intense soft X-rays from a small localized point, which makes it of many potential applications. For the purpose of using X-pinch plasma as X-ray backlighting source, a X-pinch device was designed, installed and tested. A pulsed accelerator was constructed for driving X- pinch plasma. The accelerator consists of a MARX generator, a 1.25 Ohm pulse forming line (PFL), a N/V switch and a 1.25 Ohm pulse transmission line (PTL). The MARX generator is composed of 16 capacitors of 0.65 muF that are charged to 75 kV in parallel. The MARX charges the PFL to about 1.2 MV when it is erected. A pulse voltage of 500 kV in amplitude and 100 ns in FWHM is delivered to PTL when the N/V switch self breaks down. The X-pinch load was composed of two Al wires 10 to 100 mum in diameter that are placed so as to cross and touch, in a shape of X, at the center of a 30-mm gap between two output plate electrodes of the accelerator. The load current was measured to be about 400 kA by a Rogowski coil inserted in one output plate electrode. The experiments on the X-pinch are being conducted. Several diagnostics including X-ray pinhole camera, PCDs and a three-frame Mach-Zehnder interferometer were employed for understanding the characteristics and dynamics of X-pinch plasmas