Guest Editorial Special Issue on Z-Pinches

There has been significant progress made in the field of pulsed power driven Z-pinches since the first Special Issue was published in IEEE T
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lasma
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in August 1998. The community has grown significantly, with more universities getting involved in this exciting area of research, which includes fusion targets, astrophysical plasmas, intense X-ray sources, and materials science, among others. Z-pinches use a variety of loads, for example, foils, gas puffs, and wire arrays for these applications. Other pinch configurations, namely, plasma foci, X-pinches, and capillary discharges, have also been used as neutron sources, backlighters, and radiation sources. New diagnostics have been developed, that probe the Z-pinch plasma with high temporal and spatial resolution not previously possible. Examples include protons produced from shortpulse high-intensity laser–matter interactions to probe the Z-pinch plasmas and spectroscopy of Doppler shifts. Furthermore, advanced computational capabilities (Hydra, LSP, Lasnex, Alegra, Gorgon, Mach2-TCRE, Perseus) have been applied to study the underlying physics of the pinch plasmas.