Effects of Wire Morphology on Plasma Instability in Z-Pinches M.D. Johnston, T.S. Strickler, M.C. Jones, R.M. Gilgenbach, Y.Y.

Lau Intense Energy Beam Interaction Lab Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences Dept. University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2104 T.A. Mehlhorn and M.E. Cuneo Sandia National Lab Albuquerque, NM

Abstract Experiments have shown that morphological features, e.g., grain boundary discontinuities, can influence the stability of plasmas in wire z-pinches. In experiments reported here, morphological changes in copper wires consisted of grain discontinuities induced by heating and recrystallization. Excimer laser shadowgraphy photographs of expanding plasmas indicated that hydrodynamic instabilities were more pronounced in wires with graindiscontinuities.

Wire z-pinches at Sandia National Laboratories and elsewhere have generated extremely high-energy x-ray pulses for inertial confinement fusion (ICF).1,2 A crucial physics issue concerns the effects of wire morphology upon energy deposition and the seeding of hydrodynamic instabilities in wire-array z-pinches.3,4,5 Such plasma instabilities could have a major negative effect on wire-plasma implosion and result in trailingmass6,7,8,9 that fails to implode and draws parasitic current.9,10 Other investigators have studied the effects of wire-radius modulation by etching wires to create an artificial, periodic array of discontinuities.11

In the research reported here, we demonstrate that wire crystalline-grain discontinuities can lead to enhanced growth of plasma hydrodynamic instabilities. Such wire grain discontinuities can be induced by heating and recrystallization of copper or pure-tungsten wires. We suggest some potential techniques to reduce these effects in tungsten wires.

The experimental configuration has been described in more detail in a previously published article.12 An array of six 2.5 nF capacitors are charged to 10-20 kV and discharged by a spark-gap switch through a single wire. The half-cycle waveform (presented in ref. 12) is ~500 ns. Wire experiments are performed in a vacuum chamber with a base pressure of 1 x 10-5 Torr. A XeCl laser generates a 308 nm-wavelength diagnostic beam to perform shadowgraphy in a 20 ns pulse; fast film is utilized as the recording medium. For these experiments, 25 micron diameter copper wire was employed in the z-pinch.

Wire morphology is analyzed in a Phillips XL30 Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) with voltages of 5 to 25 kV and magnifications between 2500 and 4700. Modification of wire morphology was performed by heating wires in vacuum using either DC or pulsed, sub-ablation voltages by the z-pinch capacitor-discharge circuit. The morphologies of a variety of wire materials and diameters were studied unheated-versus-heated, including: 1) 25 micron (diameter) copper wire, 2) 15 micron pure-tungsten, and 3) 17.5 micron K-doped tungsten (lighting wire for bulb filaments). Only the 25 micron copper wire was exploded in the z-pinch in these experiments because the peak current ~(2 kA), was insufficient to vaporize-ionize tungsten.

Figure 1 presents scanning electron microscope photos of unheated versus heated 25 micron copper wires. It can be seen in Fig. 1a that the unheated wire has a relatively smooth structure with no apparent discontinuities. By contrast, the heated and recrystallized copper wire has multiple grain-discontinuities along the wire, and Fig. 1b exhibits a particularly large discontinuity. Energy dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDXS) spectra3 for the unheated wire shows the presence of carbon and oxygen contaminants, whereas these are negligible for the heated wire.

The effects of these wire-grain discontinuities upon plasma hydrodynamic stability are presented in Fig. 2. Nonresonant-shadowgraphy data for the unheated wire are presented in the left column. The wire-plasma remains 3

relatively stable out to a 700 ns delay between current initiation and probe laser. In the right column are the shadowgraphy data for the heated wire. For the heated-recrystallized wire it is obvious that the wire plasma begins to exhibit instabilities as early as 450 ns, which persist out to 680 ns. The lower impurity concentration in the heated wires could also lead to reduced coronal density and increased energy deposition into the wires; this might explain the more rapid expansion seen in Fig. 2 (right column) at 570 ns and 690 ns. It should be emphasized that each photograph represented a z-pinch shot using a different wire, so the location and intensity of the instability will be different for each wire and picture. (Our previous resonant shadowgraphy research has shown that Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities develop during the fall-time (after 250 ns) of the current pulse in this experiment.12) Since the probing laser wavelength in the present experiment was non-resonant, the sensitivity would be lower than in our previous work.12

The implications of this grain boundary effect is particularly important for the tungsten wire utilized in high energy z-pinches at Sandia and elsewhere.7,13,14 Pure-tungsten wire exhibits a highly irregular structure (Fig. 3a). It is also well known that pure-tungsten wire is severely susceptible to offsetting of large crystals after high temperature heating.15 Fig. 3b shows grain boundary growth into macroscopic sized islands resulting from DC heating small diameter tungsten wire to 2000 K for 10 minutes. This macroscopic structure may reflect an underlying spatial variation of wire properties that will have an impact on the subsequent heating rates and uniformity of expansion of the wire during pulsed experiments. 4

The electric lighting industry solved this problem long ago by utilizing Kdoped wire that assumes a much smoother morphology (Fig. 3c) and upon heating produces longitudinally oriented crystals. These data suggest that the more uniform crystalline structure of K-doped W wire could yield improved hydrodynamic stability in z-pinches. We speculate that the non-uniform resistivity across grain boundaries results in nonuniform electrical energy deposition along the wire which may result in the axially-non-uniform wire ablation observed in experiments.5,7 Experiments are underway at UM on a 10 kA z-pinch to compare z-pinch hydrodynamic stability for pure-tungsten versus K-doped tungsten.4 Further research is required to characterize the microscopic resistivity across grain boundaries. Future research will explore amorphous wire, which might be expected to reduce plasma instabilities by the absence of grain boundaries.

We acknowledge support from the US Department of Energy through a subcontract from Sandia National Laboratories. The research was also performed under appointment to the Fusion Energy Sciences Fellowship program administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education under a contract between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 1. Scanning electron microscope photos of 25 micron copper wires. a) unheated wire, b) heated in vacuum for 30 and allowed to cool and recrystallize.

Unheated Wires

DC Pre-Heated Wires

2.5mm
0 ns Delay 0 ns Delay

180 ns Delay

165 ns Delay

310 ns Delay

300 ns Delay

470 ns Delay

450 ns Delay

580 ns Delay

570 ns Delay

700 ns Delay

690 ns Delay

Figure 2. Experimental, nonresonant-shadowgraphy data of wire z-pinch plasma for various time delays between current initiation and diagnostic laser pulse. Left column: unheated wire, right column: heated and cooled wire. (Anode is to the left, cathode is to the right in the pictures).

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(a)

(b)

(c) Figure 3. SEM photos of (a) 15 micron pure tungsten wire, (b) 11.5 micron pure tungsten wire DC heated for 10 minutes at 2000 K, and (c) 17.

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