Development of a sodium z-pinch load for use on the Saturn accelerator

Abstract

A reliable sodium wire-array z-pinch load has been developed for use on the Saturn accelerator. This load routinely produces implosions with ≥200 GW of power in the heliumlike sodium 1s2–1s2p 1P1 line at 11 Å. Our best shots have used a 12.5-mm-diam, 20-mm-long annular array of 16 75-μm-diam pure sodium wires. This load will allow us to test predictions of gain in the sodium/neon resonant photoexcitation x-ray laser system.