Ablation dynamics, precursor formation, and instability studies on thin foil copper liners

Summary form only given. Solid liners are an attractive load design, for use with magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) and for possible replacement of wire-array Z-pinches on larger pulsed-power drivers. Comparisons between equally massed and dimensioned wire-arrays and thin foil liners will be presented. Using an axial X pinch backlighter¹, the ablation characteristics and precursor formation are studied. The liners show very little ablation and precursor as compared to wire-arrays.Using laser shadowgraphy and comparisons with the extended magnetohydrodynamics (XMHD) PERSEUS code2, instability growth on the outside of the liners is examined. The instability is found not to be magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT), but a velocity shear flow instability.