Discharge driver for 13.4 NM XUV laser

During adiabatic expansion of Z-pinching plasma column can arise conditions suitable for amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) pumped by 3-body recombination. MHD and kinetic simulations had shown¹, that capillary discharge with current amplitude I > 60 kA and slope dI/dt > 2e12 A/s can produce plasma condition for ASE of H-like nitrogen Balmer-alpha line at 13.4 nm. Discharge driver capable to deliver up to 90 kA with rise-time ~25 ns into 20 cm long capillary was designed. Driver is based on water slab capacitor pulse compression stages switched by spark-gap. Capillary is charged symmetrically with voltage up to ±160 kV -100 A high-frequency current pulse is used to pre-ionize gas in the capillary. The driver will be used primarily as an experimental device to study capillary plasma for ASE by 3-body recombination, and secondarily as a source of high intensity incoherent XUV radiation in water-window region.