XP Pulser Research Articles

X-ray imaging of an X-pinch plasma with a bubble compound refractive lens

We present diagnostic images taken of an X-pinch plasma x-ray source driven by the XP pulser (100 ns, 500 kA) at Cornell University using an x-ray bubble compound refractive lens. The lens consists of a 200 μm inside diameter glass capillary that contains about 100 biconcave microlenses formed by a string of bubbles in epoxy. A precise system for lens alignment with of 3–5 arcmin accuracy is described. X-ray images of four-wire X pinches were obtained with a spatial resolution of approximately 2 μm.