A Streak Mode Soft X-ray Imaging System

A streak mode soft X-ray imaging system was newly developed. The system is composed of a combination of a six-channel scintillator-photomultiplier array and a pinhole camera. In this system, the pinhole camera was used to obtain the spatial distribution of the impulsive soft X-ray source quantitatively. Analog signals from the photomultiplier array were provided to obtain the time variation of the source intensity. Software was developed to perform a streak mode display consisting of a 25×20 mesh (3.2 ns/div and 1 mm/div). This system has been successfully employed to observe the time evolution of X-ray emission in plasma focus discharges with puffed Ar. The lifetime and the intensity of the soft X-ray emitting spots around 4 A were found typically to be ~5 ns and ~1016 photons/(mrad2mms), respectively.