Gas puff Z-pinch implosions with external Bz field on COBRA

Abstract

We present preliminary experimental results on mitigating Magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instabilities by applying an external Bz field. The experiments were conducted on the 1-MA, 200-ns COBRA generator at Cornell University. In the experiments, a triple-nozzle was used to produce z-pinch loads from concentric outer and inner annular gas puffs and a center gas puff column. A single coil was used to produce a Bz field in the pinch region. We have used two 4-frame 2-ns gated EUV cameras to obtain images of the imploding plasmas, in which the MRT instabilities were observed. The MRT instabilities can grow when the plasma accelerates toward the axis. With a triple gas puff (outer, inner and center puff), reduced acceleration or de-acceleration of the imploding plasma occurred when the outer puff plasma imploded onto the inner annular puff plasma resulting a relatively stable implosion. In the absent of the inner annular gas puff, the imploding outer annular plasma continued to accelerate toward the axis. Large turbulent flares at the edge of the implosion or pinch plasma were observed. The implosion was not stable. To stabilize the implosion without the inner gas puff, a Bz field was applied. This external Bz field was compressed by the outer imploding plasma shell. A relatively stable implosion was observed. Increasing the Bz field to 2-kG resulted in a relatively fatter pinch plasma.