Observation of XUV emission from Al Z-pinch plasmas in the 40-700Å range

The radiation emission from Al wire-array Z-pinch plasmas was recorded in the XUV range from 40 to 700Å. Cylindrical, 6mm in diameter, 20mm tall arrays with eight 15m Al wires were imploded using the 1MA Zebra pulsed power generator at the University of Nevada Reno. At the collapse of the implosion, the Z-pinch plasma radiates up to terawatts of broadband x-ray power. This high x-ray output makes them attractive as x-ray sources for radiation-driven experiments. Characterization of the x-ray emission is important for understanding the spectral distribution of the x-ray flux impinging on a sample as well as for informing models of the Z-pinch implosion. We present measurements of the time-integrated x-ray emission spectrum from the Z-pinch recorded in the range from 40 to 700Å using a grazing incidence Acton spectrometer equipped with a spherically bent 1.5m-radius diffraction grating. The data was collected in a series of nominally identical experiments. The observed spectrum is rich in line emission from transitions in several charge states. We discuss the experimental results and an initial interpretation of the line spectrum.