Experimental Study of an Inverse Wire Array Z-Pinch Operating as a Current Switch

We will present experiments on the MAGPIE facility (1.5MA, 250ns) in which an inverse wire array [1] (with the wires acting as a return current cage placed around a central current conductor) operated as a fast current switch. This allowed to significantly reduce the rise-time of the current pulse ($<$100ns) delivered to a separate, standard imploding wire array z-pinch load. Experimental studies of the operation of this arrangement as a current switch will be discussed and new measurements of current switching into the load array will be presented. We will also discuss how pre-conditioning of the load array wires by the current pre-pulse [2] depends on wire materials (Al, Cu, W) used in the load and the exploding wire arrays. \\[4pt] [1] A. Harvey-Thompson, S.V. Lebedev, S.N. Bland et al., PoP 16, 022701 (2009).\\[0pt] [2] A. Harvey-Thompson, S.V. Lebedev, G. Burdiak, et al., PRL 106, 205002 (2011)