Z: A Fast Pulsed Power Generator for Ultra-High Magnetic Field Generation

Advances in fast, pulsed-power technologies have resulted in the development of very high current drivers that have current rise times - 100 ns. The largest such pulsed power drive r today is the new Z accelerator located at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Z is capable of delivering more than 20 MA with a time-to-peak of 105 ns to low inductance (- 1 nH)loads. Such large drivers are capable of directly generating magnetic fields approaching 3 kT in small, 1 -cm3, volumes. In addition to direct field generation, Z can be used to compress an applied, axial seed field with a plasma. Flux compression scheme~: are not new and are, in fact, the basis of all explosive flux-compression generators but we propose the use of plasma armatures rather than solid, conducting armatures. We will present experimental results from the Z accelerator in which magnetic fields - 2 kT are generated and measured with several diagnostics. Issues such as energy loss in solid conductors and dynamic response of current-carrying conductors to very large magnetic fields will be reviewed in context with Z experiments. We will describe planned flux-compression experiments that are expected to create the highest-magnitude uniform-field volumes yet attained in the laboratory