An optical streak diagnostic for observing anode-cathode plasmas for radiographic source development

National Security Technologies and Sandia National Laboratories are collaborating in the research and development of pulsed-power-driven intense electron beam sources for x-ray radiography. These diode sources typically generate electrode plasmas with densities of 10¹³-10¹⁷ cm^-3, and understanding these plasmas is critical for optimizing the radiographic performance. NSTec has developed and fielded two systems which provide temporally and spatially resolved measurements of plasma density distributions. Details of the hardware are provided along with example measurement results.