Generation Conditions and Compression Process of Divergent Wire Array Z-Pinch

Research on high temperature dense plasma has been conducted using plasma focus and divergent gas puff Z-pinch devices for the development of radiation sources such as soft x-ray and neutron. In particular, in the latter device, it has been found that using a mixed gas of hydrogen and other gas with a large atomic number, the energy input to the plasma increases and thus high temperature plasmas can be generated 1. In order to produce higher temperature pinch plasmas, wire array Z-pinches using heavy elements other than gases have also been studied and require a fast pulsed power supply to prevent the wire from evaporating and turning into plasma before the Z-pinch occurs 2. We showed a new type of Z-pinch based on a slow generator like a capacitor bank could be realized by arranging the wires divergently. In this study, we researched the generation condition and the compression process for Z-pinched plasmas with the divergent wire array in order to make efficient use of divergent wire array pinches in high temperature plasma experiments.