Investigation of CH foams doped with titanium as a cold x-ray source alternative*

Implosions of wire array and gas puff loads on pulsed power facilities, such as the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories, have been successful in producing 1-10 keV soft x-ray sources. Titanium wire array loads imploded on Z have produced ~100 kJ of 4.8 keV x-rays 1,2 . We present here medium- and high-atomic-number-material doped plastic foams as an alternative load concept for producing cold and warm x rays on Z and future higher current generators up to 60 MA. Doped foams may have certain advantages over traditional gas puffs in terms of load material choice and initial mass distribution and therefore merit exploration. Specifically, the NRL DZAPP code was used to investigate the implosion of CH foams doped with titanium to generate high yields of 4.8 keV x rays. DZAPP is a coupled 1-D Lagrangian MHD, non-LTE level kinetics, and radiation transport code that incorporates a transmission line circuit to drive a load. Results include the current waveforms, radiation power pulses, K-shell yields, temperature and density contour plots, and spectra.