The Los Alamos foil implosion project

The goal of the Los Alamos foil implosion project is to produce an intense (>;100 TW), multimegajoule, laboratory soft x-ray source for material studies and fusion experiments. The concept involves the implosion of annular, current-carrying, cylindrical metallic plasmas via their self-magnetic forces. The project features inductive storage systems using both capacitor banks and high explosive-driven flux compression generators as prime energy sources. Fast opening switches are employed to shorten the electrical pulses. The program will be described and activities to date will be summarized.