X-Ray Diagnostic for Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics Experiments on Mykonos

A new electron beam-based X-radiography diagnostic system is being developed for the ~ 1 MA Mykonos Linear Transformer Driver (LTD) pulsed power device at Sandia National Laboratories. This system will complement existing Mykonos diagnostics such as visible cameras, photon doppler velocimetry, gated visible spectroscopy, and X-pinch backlighting radiography. While X-pinch back-lighter sources have the advantage of being bright point sources, they are limited to a single image per shot and have limited timing control. This new source will potentially provide better timing control and multiple images per shot. The X-ray source is a needle-and-washer electron beam diode, emitting an X-ray pulse of around 30ns, with interchangeable needle anodes of differing elements. This source will be fielded with an Ultra-fast Xray Imager (UXI) camera with a frame time as small as 4 ns, allowing for a clearer visualization of the events occurring during the experiment. System development and preliminary results will be described.

This work was supported by NNSA grant no. DE-NA0004135

SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525

SAND2025-09507A