Pulse power machines in the plasma physics group at Imperial College

Magpie was completed some four years ago and was constructed to investigate the radiative collapse in cryogenic fibres of hydrogen and deuterium. It was designed to produce up to 1.8 MA into a fibre z pinch load. This paper describes how Magpie uses four Hermes III type Marx generators, each connected to a 5 Ω pulse forming line and trigatron gas switches. The transfer section is 1.25 Ω and feeds a diode stack and a short conical MITL, which transfers the energy into the z-pinch load