X-ray radiation from puff-on-wire implosion on the COBRA generator

Substantial progress has been made in developing plasma radiation sources from Z-pinch implosions. University pulsed power machines provide a cost effective platform to study alternative mechanisms of producing x-rays that may provide guidance in search of further improvements on the larger machines. Radiation from puff-on-wire implosions were previously studied [1,2]. We report recent observations and modeling of puff-on-wire implosions using the 1 MA COBRA generator in the long pulse mode. The gas puff used Ne, Ar, or Kr and the wire material was either Cu or manganin 290 (84{\%} Cu, 12{\%} Mn, 4{\%} Ni). The diagnostics include time-integrated pinhole cameras and an axially resolved spectrometer, multiple filtered PCDs and Si-diodes, and time-gated XUV cameras. X-ray radiation from the gas puff and the K-alpha line from wire material was detected. A 1-D multi-zone non-LTE kinetics code with radiation transport will be used to model the radiation to infer the plasma conditions. [1] A. Chuvatin, P. Choi, and B. Ethlicher, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{76}, 2282 (1996) [2] F.J. Wessel, P.L. Coleman, N. Loter, \textit{et al.}, J. Appl. Phys. \textbf{81}, 3410 (1997)