Enhancing X-ray Output with a Gas-Puff Based Plama Opening Switch

This talk introduces an idea for employing a low density gas-puff implosion as a plasma opening switch to rapidly transfer a current pulse into a more inductive load. A gas-puff on axial wire configuration is used to investigate the promise of this opening switch as a means of increasing the x-ray yield from the wire. We demonstrate the development of this configuration into a tunable current switch, and present promising x-ray measurements which suggest that this switch merits further investigation into its potential usefulness in x-ray source applications.