Abstract
A Thomson scattering diagnostic has been used to measure the parameters of cylindrical wire array Z pinch plasmas. The scattering operates in the collective regime (α>1) allowing spatially localised measurements of the ion or electron plasma temperatures and of the plasma bulk velocity. The ablation flow is found to accelerate towards the axis reaching peak velocities of 1.2–1.3 × 107 cm/s in aluminium and ∼1 × 107 cm/s in tungsten arrays. Measurements of the precursor ion temperature shortly after formation are found to correspond to the kinetic energy of the converging ablation flow. Measurements during the implosion phase of tungsten arrays show the main imploding mass reaches velocities of ∼1.4–1.7 × 107 cm/s and is non-zero even at large radii close to the start of the x-ray pulse indicating current flow in the trailing mass.
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