Dynamics Of Thin Liners Driven By A Z-pinch

Axisymmetric membranes produced out of liquid films (bubbles in vacuum) are imploded by a Z-pinch. The pinch is powered by a condenser bank (V ≤ 60 kV, W ≤ 100 kJ). A comparison is made between numerical calculations and experimental results. In particular, a quasi-spherical collapse of the liner is described in which a large burst of soft X-rays is generated. It is shown that in order to obtain dense imploding plasma liners a criterion involving dI/dt (similar to Hammel-Haines rule for thin fibres) must be satisfied.