Study of stability in a liner-on-target gas puff Z-pinch as a function of pre-embedded axial magnetic field

Gas puff Z-pinches are intense sources of X-rays and neutrons but are highly susceptible to the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability (MRTI). MRTI mitigation is critical for optimal and reproducible yields, motivating significant attention toward various potential mitigation mechanisms. One such approach is the external application of an axial magnetic field, which will be discussed here in the context of recent experiments on the Zebra generator (1 MA, 100 ns) at the University of Nevada, Reno. In these experiments, an annular Kr gas liner is imploded onto an on-axis deuterium target with a pre-embedded axial magnetic field B z 0 ranging from 0 to 0.3 T. The effect of B z 0 on the stability of the Kr liner is evaluated with measurements of plasma radius, overall instability amplitude, and dominant instability wavelength at different times obtained from time-gated extreme ultraviolet pinhole images. It was observed that the external axial magnetic field does not affect the implosion velocity significantly and that it reduces the overall instability amplitude and the presence of short-wavelength modes, indicating improved pinch stability and reproducibility. For the highest applied B z 0 = 0.3 T, the stagnation radius measured via visible streak images was found to increase. These findings are consistent with experiments reported in the literature, but here, the B z 0 required for stability, B z 0 = 0.13 I p k / R 0 (where Ipk is the driver peak current and R0 is the initial radius), is lower. This could be attributed to the smaller load geometry, both radially and axially. Consistent with other experiments, the cause of decreased convergence cannot be explained by the additional axial magnetic pressure and remains an open question.