A comparative study of single and double gas puff Z-pinches on CESZAR

Gas puff Z-pinches¹ are of great interest for fusion and X-ray source applications. The Magneto Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (MRTI) is particularly destructive in this configuration and poses a significant challenge in achieving stable implosions. Much work has been done on studying implosion stability and MRTI-mitigation techniques for gas puff Z-pinches. This study's focus is on snowplow stabilization² using a structured gas puff load, specifically employing a double gas puff with a hollow liner (Ar) centered on a solid-fill target (D₂). Here we present results comparing single hollow shell gas puffs with coaxial double gas puffs on CESZAR a 500kA, 160ns fast Linear Transformer Driver. The main diagnostics used in these experiments were a time gated XUV pinhole camera producing up to four spatially resolved frames along the implosion timeline and filtered pin diodes to measure X-rays emitted by the pinch. We describe the effect of this mitigation technique on implosion dynamics and X-ray production here. To complement experimental findings, 2-D simulations were performed on the radiation-MHD code, MACH2.