A shock amplification platform for multi-TPa equation-of-state experiments on the Z machine

First Light Fusion (FLF) is developing hydrodynamic pressure amplifiers as part of its IFE program. Through the Z fundamental Science Program, FLF have been collaborating with Sandia National Laboratories to develop these amplifiers as an equation-of-state platform.

On the Z machine, magnetically-driven flyer plates are routinely used as drivers for shock Hugoniot and release measurements at pressures of up to several TPa, depending on the sample material. In this work, we demonstrate effective coupling of a hydrodynamic pressure amplifier to a flyer plate driven by the Z machine, to increase the attainable pressure whilst maintaining a diagnostically significant sample size and hold time.



A 31 km/s aluminium flyer plate impacted a linear array of 4 hydrodynamic amplifiers. Amplifier spatial and temporal output was characterized via spatially resolved velocimetry of the shock front driven into a quartz sample located at each amplifier output. The experiment demonstrated a quar­­­­­tz shock pressure of 1.85 TPa over a diameter of 500 um and temporal hold of ~10 ns. The temporal and spatial uniformity are suitable for high-precision equation of state measurements relative to a standard. This represents a 25 % increase over previously attainable quartz pressure on Z.



Future experiments will target quartz principle Hugoniot pressures of 3 – 5 TPa, allowing cross facility validation of high-pressure quartz Hugoniot data obtained on the NIF [M. C. Marshall et al., Phys. Rev. B 2019].