Spatiotemporally Resolved Measurements of Hard and Soft X-rays at the UCSD CESZAR Z-Pinch Device*

A 2D x-ray camera capable of imaging energetic photons exceeding 5keV has been developed, capable of generating 16x16 pixel movies of hard X-ray emissions with an effective interframe time of 18ns. This 2D X-ray camera was deployed at the CESZAR Z-pinch device to create spatiotemporally resolved measurements of X-rays generated during the lifetime of the pinch. The target consisted of a central deuterium gas jet gas with a liner of either argon or krypton to stabilize Magneto-Rayleigh Taylor Instability which destroy the viability of the pinch. Preliminary tests have demonstrated energetic X-ray signals, which were detected in a spatially unresolved manner in 1 out of 24 shots. This report intends to present results from ongoing experiments. The camera is planned to be used as a coarse X-ray energy spectrometer by imaging X-rays through filters constructed by interleaving multiple species of metal. Any potential resulting data will be compared against predicted transmission through the filters given beam-target or thermal X-ray distributions. Further, with access to a second spatial dimension in the movies generated by the diagnostic, the location of any observed X-rays in the image plane will be readily determined. Finally, it is planned to correlate these energy spectra and spatially-resolved movies with time-of-flight neutron detectors to establish the nature and location of X-rays emitted by the pinch, thus giving insight into their underlying generative mechanism.