Charge-coupled device systems for recording two-dimensional multi-mega-ampere z-pinch data

Hardware and software have been developed for recording and displaying accu rate image and spectral data produced by z-pinch plasma radiation sources a t the Double-EAGLE facility at Maxwell Physics International. Desktop compu ters are used to acquire the data, analyze it, and display and print the re sults. Of the four charge-coupled device (CCD) image recording systems impl emented, two record x rays directly and two record optical light emission f rom electron-excited phosphors. The CCD systems required careful shielding to allow them to operate in the harsh radio frequency noise environment. Du ring a series of shots at the SATURN facility at Sandia National Laboratori es, the quality of a keV x-ray spectrum recorded directly with a CCD compar ed well with an equivalent spectrum recorded with 2497 film. (C) 2001 Ameri can Institute of Physics.