X-ray observations of tungsten wire array Z-pinch implosions on QiangGuang-1 facility

Z-pinch experiments with two arrays consisting, respectively, of 32 4-μm- and 6-μm-diameter tungsten wires have been carried out on QiangGuang-1 facility with a current rising up to 1.5MA in 80ns. At early time of implosion, x-ray framing images show that the initial emission comes from the central part of arrays, and double clear emission rings, drifting to the anode and the cathode at 5×10⁶cm/s and 2.4×10⁷cm/s respectively, are often produced near the electrodes. Later, in a 4-μm-diameter tungsten wire array, filamentation caused by ohmic heating is prominent, and more than ten filaments have been observed. A radial inward shift of arrays starts at about 30\,ns earlier than the occurrence of the x-ray peak power for both kinds of arrays, and the shrinkage rate of emission region is as high as 1.7×10⁷cm/s in a 4-μm-diameter tungsten wire array, which is two times higher than that in a 6-μm one. Emission from precursor plasmas is observed in implosion of 6-μm-diameter tungsten wire arrays, but not in implosion of a 4-μm-diameter tungsten wire array. Whereas, in a 4-μm-diameter tungsten wire array, the soft x-ray emission shows the growth of m=1 instability in the plasma column, which is caused by current. The reasons for the discrepancy between implosions of 4-μm- and 6-μm-diameter tungsten wire arrays are explained.     

The thermal accommodation of helium and argon on a tungsten wire,deduced from the heat lost by the wire

Experimental data are presented on the heat imparted by a polycrystalline tungsten wire of preferred orientation (such that the [110] direction was approximately parallel to the wire axis) to helium and argon at pressures of order 10^?3 torr. Values of the accommodation coefficient (α) are deduced, the temperature of the gases being 300°K and that of the tungsten ranging from 1073 to 1785°K. Over this temperature range the values of α for helium and argon are 0.018 and 0.25 respectively, being virtually independent of the temperature difference between the gases and the tungsten.     

Homogeneous electrical explosion of tungsten wire in vacuum

Experimental results on Joule energy deposition upon initiation of a fast electrical explosion of 16-μm tungsten wire in vacuum at current densities of more than 10⁸ A/cm² are reported. We have found that explosion with a fast current rise time (～170 A/ns into a short) results in homogeneous and enhanced deposition of electrical energy into the tungsten before surface flashover. The maximum tungsten wire resistivity reaches a value of up to ～185 μΩ cm before surface flashover that significantly exceeds the melting boundary and corresponds to a temperature of ～1 eV. The highest values for light radiation and expansion velocity of wire ～1 km/s were observed for the fast explosion. For the explosion mode with a slower current rise time (～22 A/ns into a short), we observed the existence of an “energy deposition barrier” for tungsten wire. In the slow explosion mode, the current is reconnected to the surface shunting discharge before melting. The maximum tungsten wire resistivity in this case reaches the value of ～120 μΩ cm, which is less than indicative of melting. Also, the energy deposition along the wire is strongly inhomogeneous, and wire is disintegrated into parts. We attribute the early reconnection of the current to the surface discharge for the slow explosion to high electron emission from the wire surface, which starts before melting.     

Radiation characteristics and implosion dynamics of tungsten wire array Z-pinches on the YANG accelerator

We investigated the radiation characteristics and implosion dynamics of low-wire-number cylindrical tungsten wire array Z-pinches on the YANG accelerator with a peak current 0.8-1.1 MA and a rising time ～ 90 ns.The arrays are made up of(8-32)×5 μm wires 6/10 mm in diameter and 15 mm in height.The highest X-ray power obtained in the experiments was about 0.37 TW with the total radiation energy ～ 13 kJ and the energy conversion efficiency ～ 9%(24×5 μm wires,6 mm in diameter).Most of the X-ray emissions from tungsten Z-pinch plasmas were distributed in the spectral band of 100-600 eV,peaked at 250 and 375 eV.The dominant wavelengths of the wire ablation and the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability were found and analyzed through measuring the time-gated self-emission and laser interferometric images.Through analyzing the implosion trajectories obtained by an optical streak camera,the run-in velocities of the Z-pinch plasmas at the end of the implosion phase were determined to be about(1.3-2.1)×10 7 cm/s.     

强光1号装置上钨丝阵列的Z箍缩实验研究

本文报道了2003年在强光一号装置上进行的钨丝阵列的Z箍缩实验研究的主要结果。为了研究钨丝阵列的内爆过程和x光辐射特性，使用了x光功率谱仪和一维时空分辨x光成像系统等诊断设备。实验中由32根5微米钨丝组成的直径8mm长20mm的优化负载获得了最高能量为36.6kJ的x光产额，一维时空分辨x光成像系统的数据显示x光辐射区域以6.4×10⁶cm/s的速度减小，同时x光峰值时刻出现在等离子体被压缩到近轴区域之前。     

Design and performance of a 2-D multi-wire position sensitive X-ray detector

A 2-D multi-wire position sensitive detector for X-ray diffraction and small angle X-ray scattering studies is described. The detector has an active area of 100 mm × 100 mm and consists of an anode plane with 10 μm SS wires at 3 mm spacing and a pair of orthogonal cathode readout planes with 25 μm SS wires placed at 1.5 mm spacing. The position information is obtained using charge division method and recorded using a laboratory built data acquisition system. The resolution and gas gain was measured for 5.9 keV X-rays (⁵⁵Fe-source) as a function of the anode wire voltage and gas pressure. It was observed that the proportional region of the PSD at 100 kPa pressure extended up to a high voltage value of around 1.5 kV and it shifted to high values up to 2 kV for gas pressure of 300 kPa. The energy resolution improved from 18% (FWHM) to 12% with increase in pressure. The spatial resolution of the PSD also showed improvement, with a value of 1.2 mm × 1.4 mm at 300 kPa gas pressure. A maximum gain of 5 × 10⁴ is obtained.     

A low-temperature high-pressure apparatus with a temperature control system

Abstract

A low-temperature high-pressure apparatus was designed using commercial cryogenic equipment. Pressures up to 1 GPa and temperatures down to 40 K can be obtained in a volume of up to 30 cm³. The apparatus is of the piston-cylinder type with a piston diameter of 45 mm, and the pressure can be varied at all temperatures, An adaptive temperature control system keeps the temperature inside the pressure cylinder constant to within ±0.1 K.     

Low gas pressures obtained by means of sorbents

The paper describes the use of active charcoal and a 13X molecular sieve at 78°K to pump all-glass apparatuses with a small volume (up to 5000 cm³) from atmospheric pressure to a pressure region of 10^–2 mm Hg. At this pressure an outgassed second pumping stage (also sorbent) permits pressures from 10^–6 to 10^–7 mm Hg to be obtained. Active charcoal was also used as a two-stage fore pump (p=10^–6 mm Hg) for a one-stage mercury diffusion pump and in this system pressures of 5 to 10×10^–10 mm Hg were achieved.     

DX-Like behavior of Se-impurity centers in gasb under hydrostatic pressure

Abstract

Hall coefficient (R_H) and electrical resistivity measurements have been performed as a function of temperature (between 77 K and 300 K) and under hydrostatic pressures (up to 15 kbar) on a set of Se-doped GaSb samples with impurity concentrations in the range 8×10¹⁷ cm^?3 - 1×10¹⁸ cm^?3. With increasing pressure at 300 K, the electrons are strongly trapped into a resonant impurity level. The pressure induced occupation of this level leads to time-dependent effects at T<120 K. The activated thermal electron emission over a potential barrier E<sb>B = 300×30 meV gives clear evidence for a large lattice relaxation around the impurity centers characteristic for DX-like behavior.     

A simple opposed-anvil apparatus for high pressure and temperature experiments above 10 GPa

A new opposed-anvil high pressure and temperature apparatus was developed based on the Drickamer-type apparatus. Various improvements were made to increase the sample volume and to generate high pressure and temperature stably and easily. By optimizing components such as the anvil, heater, and gasket, large sample volumes of about 4?mm³ (～10³ times more than that previously obtained with our previous apparatus) were achieved, with compact and light apparatus (outer diameter ? 40?mm; height 31?mm; weight 300?g). Pressures and temperatures up to about 15?GPa and 1700?K can routinely and stably be achieved by using this assembly. In order to extend the pressure range further, sintered diamond was used as an anvil material. As a result, pressures and temperatures of around 38?GPa and 1400?K were achieved, although the sample volume was decreased to about 1.3×10^?1?mm³.     

Radiative emission of hot metallic clusters

Analysis of experimental data on the relaxation of freely moving hot niobium and tungsten clusters shows that they are cooled as a result of radiative emission. The absorption cross sections per atom of niobium and tungsten clusters in the temperature range 3100–3700 K are (4 −7)×10⁻¹⁸ cm², and the absorption process loses its resonant character at these temperatures. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 69, No. 6, 453–458 (25 March 1999)     

Study on fracture of tungsten wire induced by acoustic cavitation at different hydrostatic pressures and driving electric powers

The near-solid wall multi-bubble cavitation is an extremely complex phenomenon, and cavitation has strong erosiveness. The melting point (about 3410 °C) of tungsten is highest among all pure metals, and its hardness is also very high (its yield strength is greater than 1 GPa). What would happen to pure tungsten wire under extreme conditions caused by collapsing cavitation bubbles at high hydrostatic pressure? In this paper, we have studied the fracture process of pure tungsten wire with diameter of 0.2 mm mounted at the focus of a standing acoustic wave produced by a spherical cavity transducer with two open ends placed in a near spherical pressure container, and also studied the macro and micro morphological characteristics of the fracture and the surface damage at different fracture stages of tungsten wire under various hydrostatic pressures and driving electric powers. The results have shown that the fracture time of tungsten wire is inversely proportional to avitation intensity with hydrostatic pressure and driving electric power, the higher the acoustic pressure caused by higher electric power, the shorter the fracture time. The possible fracture mechanisms of tungsten wire in this situation we found mainly contributed to asymmetrically bubbles collapse near the surface of tungsten wire, leading to tearing the surface apart; consequently cracks along the radial and axial directions of a tungsten wire extend simultaneously, classified as trans-granular fracture and inter-granular fracture, respectively. With the increase of cavitation intensity, the cracks tend to extend more radially and the axial crack propagation path becomes shorter, that is, mainly for trans-granular fracture; with the decrease of cavitation intensity, intergranular fracture becomes more obvious. When the hydrostatic pressure was 10 MPa and the driving electric power was 2 kW, the fibers became softener due to the fracture of the tungsten wire. The fracture caused by acoustic cavitation was different from conventional mechanical fracture, such as tensile, shear, fatigue fracture, on macro and micro morphology.     

Nature of the Mesyats effect-pulsed superheating of microscopic spikes on a cathode

A study is made of an effect observed experimentally by Mesyats which involves, prior to the electrical explosion, as such, the accumulation of an energy on the order of a few times the sublimation energy by a microscopic cathode spike during explosive emission from a cathode in a vacuum or gaseous discharge. The same effect is observed during electrical explosion of a wire. Simple estimates by various authors imply that the temperature of the wire should rise to 10⁵ K. In reality, when energy is applied very rapidly the wire cannot expand and it is superheated into a metastable state (essentially to the crystal-liquid spinodal). When the temperature rises above 10⁴ K, the specific heat of the metal increases as electronic degrees of freedom are unfrozen. Thus, the temperature attained prior to an electrical explosion does not exceed 17000 K. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 116, 2176–2181 (December 1999)     

Characterization of the fcc-distorted fcc-structural transition in lanthanum in an extended pressure and temperature range

Abstract

The displacive transition in La is studied in the pressure range up to 26 GPa and under temperatures up to 630 K with angular dispersive X-ray diffraction at the ESRF and with energy dispersive X-ray diffraction in HASYLAB to elucidate further details of this transition with an extension of the transition line up to 22.5(5) GPa and 590(10) K and a determination of the order parameter down to a level of η ≈=5· 10^?4.     

Investigation of the aging of gas-discharge detectors of particles with the use of nuclear reaction analysis

This paper reports on the results of an investigation into the aging of drift tubes with anodes fabricated from gold-plated tungsten wires under continuous irradiation with a ⁹⁰Sr beta source. The accumulated charge is as high as 9 C cm^?1. The process of aging is studied in a gaseous mixture containing Ar, CO₂, and CF₄. It is revealed that the aging brings about a severe damage of the gold coating on a tungsten wire and an increase in the diameter of the wire in the irradiated zone from 35 to 42 μm. The observed swelling of the anode wire under forces applied from the inside is apparently a new mechanism of aging of anode wires. The swelling effect is assumed to be caused by the oxidation of the tungsten wire. It is demonstrated using the nuclear reaction analysis that the deposits containing tungsten, oxygen, carbon, and fluorine are distributed along the anode wire in the direction of the gas flow. The oxygen and fluorine distributions over the depth and along the length of the anode wire are determined.     

Current-induced implosion of a multiwire array as a radial plasma rainstorm

We present our experimental results of the X-ray radiography of fast radiating Z-pinches based on cylindrical multiwire tungsten arrays. The experiments were carried out at the Angara-5-1 facility at an electrical power of up to 4 TW with a discharge current of up to 4 MA rising at a rate on the order of 5×10¹³ A s^?1. The linear mass of single and composite arrays reached 500 µg cm^?1, the initial radius was 4–10 mm, and the wire diameter was 5–8 µm. We have experimentally shown that for the current-induced implosion of multiwire tungsten arrays, significant azimuthal and axial plasma inhomogeneities result from discharge cold start and prolonged plasma production, which determine the subsequent course of the implosion. The Z-pinch structure also remains spatially inhomogeneous at the time of intense X-ray radiation. The generated inhomogeneous plasma collapses toward the array axis in the form of numerous radially elongated plasmoids with relatively small diameters. The stream of plasmoids is called a radial plasma rainstorm. As the plasmoids contract toward the array axis, they decrease in radial size and merge into isolated plasma current filaments, which are elongated mainly along the discharge axis. We critically discuss the models of a radiating Z-pinch in plasma composed of matter with a large atomic number that disregard the cold-start and prolonged plasma-production effects.     

Structure and composition of tungsten silicide thermal-field microprotrusions

The thermal-field microprotrusions that grow on the surface of a tungsten tip coated with silicon when the tip is heated in an electric field are investigated by a suite of field emission methods, including electron field emission, ion desorption microscopy, and the atomic-probe method. For Si coatings more than a few monolayers thick, microprotrusions are observed to grow in the field desorption regime when the tip is heated to temperatures T=1100–1200 K in an electric field with initial intensity F=5.7–8.6×10⁷ V/cm. The field at which they evaporate is 1.2–1.8×10⁸ V/cm. The set of moving spots (i.e., microprotrusions) forms rings whose collapse signals the dissolution of the thermal-field growths on the developed faces. The most interesting structures are the sharp microprotrusions that grow on the central facet of a {110} tungsten tip under certain conditions. Atomic-probe analysis of their composition reveals that they consist of tungsten trisilicide WSi₃ with a monolayer surface skin whose composition is close to WSi₂. The intense growth of these formations on an initially smooth closepacked {110} face of tungsten is evidence that reconstruction of the latter takes place under the influence of the strong field and the interaction with silicon. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 67, 102–109 (September 1997)     

Influence of the cathode and anode jets on the properties of a high-current electric arc

A study is made of the effects related to the formation of electrode jets in discharges in hydrogen and air at a current of 10⁵–10⁶ A, a current growth rate of 10¹⁰ A/s, an initial pressure of 0.1–4.0 MPa, and a discharge gap length of 5–40 mm. After secondary breakdown, jets are observed in a semitransparent discharge channel expanding with a velocity of (4–7)×10² m/s. The formation of shock waves in the interaction of the jets with the ambient gas and the opposite electrode is observed by the shadowgraphy method. Seventy microseconds after the beginning of the discharge, the pressure of the metal vapor plasma near the end of the tungsten cathode amounts to 177 MPa. The brightness temperature in this case is T=59×10³ K, the average ion charge number is [`(m)] = 3.1\overline m = 3.1 , and the metal vapor density is n=5.3×10<sup>19</sup> cm<sup>−3</sup>. After 90 μs, the average ion charge number and the metal vapor density near the anode end are [`(m)] = 2.6\overline m = 2.6 and n=7.4×10¹⁹ cm⁻³, respectively. Based on the experimental data, possible reasons for the abnormally high values of the total voltage drop near the electrodes (up to ∼1 kV) are discussed.     

P- V- T Data of hexagonal boron nitride h BN and determination of pressure and temperature using thermoelastic equations of state of multiple phases

Abstract

A synchrotron x-ray diffraction study on hexagonal boron-nitride (hBN) was conducted at simultaneous high pressures and temperatures. The pressure applied to the sample is pseudo-hydrostatic up to 9.0 GPa and the temperature was homogeneous in the range of 300 K to 1280 K. A modified Rietveld profile refinement has been applied to these diffraction spectra of low symmetry and multiple phases observed in the energy-dispersive mode. Thermoelastic parameters of hBN were derived by fitting a modified high temperature Birch-Murnaghan equation of state. The results are: bulk modulus K=17.6 GPa, pressure derivative K′=?K/?P=19.5, temperature derivative [kdot]=?K/?T=?0.69 × 10^?2 Gpa/K, volumetric thermal expansivity α=a+bT with values of a=4.38 × 10^?5K^?1 and b=1.75 × 10^?8K^?2, respectively. It is observed that the thermal expansion and compression along different crystal axes are significantly different. The crystal c-axis is much more expandable and compressible than the a-axis. This is attributed to the layered structure of the hBN. Because the thermoelastic equations of state of hBN and NaCl are quite different, the unit cell volumes of these two materials, derived from the same diffraction pattern, can be used to derive the experimental P-T conditions. The large intersection angle of isochoric lines of these phases in P-T space ensures a determination of P-T with satisfactory precision. The application and limitations of this method in obtaining experimental pressure and temperature using diffraction data and thermoelastic equations of state of multiple phases are discussed.