Direct Drive Foil Implosion Experiments on Pegasus II

Pegasus II is the upgraded version of Pegasus, a pulsed power machine used in the Los Alamos Above Ground Experiments (AGEX) program. The goal of the program is to produce an intense (>100 TW) source of soft x‐rays from the thermalization of the KE of a 1 to 10 MJ collapsing plasma source. The radiation pulse should have a maximum duration of several tens of nanoseconds and will be used in the study of fusion conditions and material properties. This paper addresses z‐pinch experiments done on a capacitor bank where the radiating plasma source is formed by an imploding annular aluminum foil driven by the JxB forces generated by the current flowing through the foil.