Tungsten spatially-resolved hard x-ray spectra and their applications to non-thermal high-atomic-number Z-pinch plasmas.

We recently performed new tungsten (W) Z-pinch experiments with an advanced diagnostic set which included measuring spatially-resolved hard x-ray spectra. We generated plasma on the UNR Zebra generator using Double Planar Wire Array (DPWA) loads consisting of two identical rows of six W fine wires. Through x-ray spectroscopy, we measured the intensities of several L-shell emission lines and compared their relative intensities to previous theoretical predictions and warm dense matter results [1]. We recorded an average W-Lα1/Lβ1 intensity ratio to be roughly 11% higher than the theoretical expectation of 1.8. We’ll discuss the analysis of our data on the basis of spatial and ionization non-uniformity and its application to the non-thermal plasmas of high-atomic-number Z-pinches.



[1] J.F. Seely, B.V. Weber, D.G. Phipps, N.R. Pereira, D. Mosher, K. Slabkowska, M. Polasik, J. Starosta, J. Rzadkiewicz, S. Hansen, U. Feldman, L.T. Hudson, J.W. Schumer, HEDP 9, 354 (2013)