Deuterium Gas Puff And CD/sub 2/ Fiber Array Z-Pinch on Saturn

We have used Saturn, a 36 module accelerator capable of delivering up to 10.5 MA in a pulse with a 40-ns rise time, to implode deuterium gas-puff and CD
₂
fiber array z pinches. The purpose of these experiments is to study the physics of neutron-generating plasmas in a z-pinch geometry. The initial condition of the z pinch was a hollow, deuterium gas column created using a fast gas valve and an annular supersonic nozzle. The nozzles had a mean diameter of either 2.5 cm or 3.5 cm and an exit aperture of 1 cm. The length of the pinch region was 2 cm. Several deuterium gas puff shots had a CD
₂
fiber located on the pinch axis. We preionized the deuterium gas column using two, single row VUV flash boards. A current prepulse of ˜ 250 kA preceded the main current pulse by ˜ 100 ns. We diagnosed the plasma with x-ray diodes, photoconducting detectors, filtered and bare bolometers, a time-resolved x-ray pinhole camera, and a time-integrated curved-crystal spectrograph. Neutron diagnostics included calibrated indium-activation detectors, scintillator-photomultiplier detectors, a scintillator-photodiode, and a lead activation detector.