Plasma evolution and modulated structures along the wire within aluminum z-pinch/x-pinch loads on QG-I facility

Summary form only given, as follows. Experimental results on imploding dynamics of aluminum wire array z-pinch and x-pinch loads driven by QG-I facility are presented. The generator, mainly consisting of a linear transformer driver (240 kJ, 2.4 MV, 1 µs) and three sections of water coaxial lines, can deliver a 1.6 MA peak current, 60–70 ns 10%–90% rise time main pulse, with a pre-pulse of 100 kA amplitude, 200 ns duration, to z-pinch like loads. The prepulse may explode the wires to form core-coronal plasma columns with much larger diameters than the initial values, before the arrival of the main pulse.