Advanced x-ray and extreme ultraviolet diagnostics and first applications to x-pinch plasma experiments at the Nevada Terawatt Facility

A wide variety of x-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) diagnostics are being developed to study z-pinch plasmas at the Nevada Terawatt Facility at the University of Nevada, Reno. Time-resolved x-ray/EUV imaging and spectroscop y, x-ray polarization spectroscopy, and backlighting will be employed to me asure profiles of plasma temperature, density, flow, and charge state, and to investigate electron distribution functions and magnetic fields. The ins truments are state-of-the-art applications of glass capillary converters (G CC), multilayer mirrors (MLM), and crystals. New devices include: a novel G CC-based two-dimensional imaging spectrometer, a six-channel crystal/MLM sp ectrometer ("polychromator") with a transmission grating spectrometer, and two sets of x-ray/EUV polarimeters/spectrometers. An x-pinch backlighter is under development. X-ray polarimeter/spectrometer, a survey spectrometer, a multichannel time-gated x-ray pinhole camera, and filtered fast x-ray dio des have observed the structure of Ti and Fe x pinches driven by a 0.9 MA c urrent. X-ray yield and pulse duration depend sensitively on the wire load. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.