REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

VOLUME 72, NUMBER 1

JANUARY 2001

Point-projection x-ray radiography using an X pinch as the radiation source

T. A. Shelkovenko,a) D. B. Sinars, S. A. Pikuz,a) K. M. Chandler, and D. A. Hammer
Laboratory of Plasma Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853

Presented on 20 June 2000 Using an X pinch as a source of radiation for point-projection radiography, it is possible to project a high-resolution 110 m shadow image of dense plasma or test objects onto x-ray-sensitive lm. The emission characteristics of X pinches composed of a wide variety of materials have been studied using several diagnostics. The pulse duration and shape of the x-ray bursts were measured in the 1.56 keV band using fast diamond PCDs and an x-ray streak camera with sweep speeds as fast as 10 ns for the full sweep 3.5 cm . To investigate the line and continuum radiation emitted by the X pinches, a convex spectrograph using a mica or KAP crystal, and a spectrograph based on a spherically bent mica crystal were used. Summarizing the data, including radiography results, wires known to have slower expansion rates and high boiling temperatures NiCr, Ti, Nb, Mo, Pd, Ta, W, and Pt appeared to yield the smallest x-ray source sizes, i.e., gave the best spatial resolution in radiographs and provided subnanosecond time resolution. All of these materials yield intense continuum radiation with energy up to 6 keV, and the highest resolution images are achieved using only the continuum radiation from the X pinch. 2001 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.1323252

An X pinch is a variant of a z pinch that is made using 2 or more ne wires typically 550 m in diameter which cross and touch at a single point, forming an X shape, as the load for a high current pulsed power generator. The resulting exploding wire plasma reliably generates a few hundred micron long z pinch at the cross point that implodes to form small, very bright, short lived 1 ns x-ray sources. An individual source size can be sufciently small under properly chosen conditions so that the X pinch can be used as an x-ray source for point-projection no pinhole radiography, as illustrated in Figs. 1 a and 2 a . Shadow images of a test object1 or dense plasma13 can be obtained directly on x-ray sensitive lm, as shown schematically in Fig. 1 a . By using three lms in series, we obtain images in different x-ray energy ranges, as indicated by the spectral efciency curves in Fig. 1 b . The previous report on this pulsed x-ray radiography diagnostic method1 described the technique and contained some sample images. This report demonstrates that the X pinch can produce different x-ray source sizes and spectra and places new limits on the size and duration of these sources. The radiation in the 35 keV range can produce images of exploding wire plasmas and test objects that exhibit spatial structure with diffraction-limited resolution. Some images also show evidence for refraction and grazing incidence reection of the imaging x rays. In the experiments described in this paper, two X pinches were usually used in parallel as the load of the XP pulsed power generator 450 kA, 100 ns full width at half maximum FWHM ,4 giving two backlighter x-ray sources in each experiment. Typical objects being imaged in these
a

Permanent address: Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia. 667

experiments included exploded wire z pinches in the return current circuit, wires exploded by an independent pulsed current source, or a static test object. The experimental geometry was such that the angle was 2030 between the two x-ray images of the objects. The principal factors that determine the spatial resolution of point-projection radiography of a specic object are the size and possibly the structure of the brightest region of the x-ray source, the imaging geometry, and the imaging wavelength s used. Refraction, reection, and diffraction effects certainly play a role in this, as shown in Fig. 2 a . Figure 2 b shows a high-resolution image of a portion of an exploding 25 m W wire obtained using an X pinch composed of two 25 m Al wires. The W wire was driven by an independent pulsed current source used in exploding wire experiments.2 This image was obtained on the rst lm behind a 12.5 m Ti lter, so the imaging radiation range was 35 keV. The distances from the X pinch to the object and to the lms were 7 and 28 cm, respectively. Spatial features as small as 34 m are visible in this image, as seen in the optical lm density lineout of Fig. 2 c and the radiograph in Fig. 2 d . This is roughly the diffraction limit of the 35 keV radiation for the imaging geometry. The size and structure of the time-integrated emission from X pinches generated using various materials were studied with a 5 m aperture pinhole camera and with a linear BraggFresnel lens.5,6 Source sizes from 20 to 100 m or even larger were observed using the pinhole camera with lters passing radiation above 1.5 keV, depending upon the X-pinch wire composition. The structure can be very complicated, consisting of multiple spots and odd shapes. However, using lters allowing only radiation 6 keV to pass, only 5 m pinhole-limited sources were observed in Mo,
2001 American Institute of Physics

0034-6748/2001/72(1)/667/4/$18.00

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FIG. 1. a Diagram of the point-projection radiographic setup showing the x-ray source, the object of study, and the lm cassette. The placement of the 12.5 m Ti lter and the x-ray sensitive lms is also shown. b Graph of the relative spectral efciency of an example set of lms, including the effect of the 12.5 m Ti lter and the order of the lms in the cassette.

Nb, Al, and Ta X pinches. Sample pinhole images are shown in Fig. 3. A linear BraggFresnel lens was used to obtain higher spatial resolution than the pinhole camera.5 The BraggFresnel lens consists of a 121-layer alternating tungsten-carbon structure (2d 70 ) of overall dimensions 0.5 5 mm. The experimental setup and a sample radiograph are shown in Fig. 4. The narrowest line measured near 3 m was obtained using 5.1 keV 2.3 radiation determined by the reection angle . Although the BraggFresnel

FIG. 3. Radiograph images obtained using a 5 m pinhole of the radiation from a 25 m wire Nb X pinch. The two images had different cutoff energies, as indicated. Note that the spot size in the 6 keV case is near 5 m, the resolution limit of the pinhole.

lens had a minimum separation between lines of 0.5 m, the limit of its spatial resolution is near 3 m.5 Thus, the actual size of the x-ray source in a Mo or Nb X pinch in the 5 keV range was less than the spatial resolution limit of both the pinhole camera and the BraggFresnel lens. Typical experiments studying exploding wires use a magnication of 410, and the spatial resolution is limited to 36 m by diffraction depending on the wavelength s used , as was the case in Fig. 2. To reduce this diffraction limit, radiographs of static test objects were made with magnications of 90120 by bring the test object closer to the X pinch. A radiograph of an 8 m glass ber and a 7.5 m W wire is shown in Fig. 5. This radiograph appears to show the effects of refraction, reection, and diffraction. The spatial

FIG. 2. a Diagram demonstrating how diffraction, reection, and refraction effects can alter the image of the object. b Point-projection radiograph image of an exploding 25 m W wire obtained using a 25 m Al X pinch. c Optical lm density lineout densitogram of the indicated region of d , an expanded region of the radiograph in b .

FIG. 4. Schematic diagram of the BraggFresnel lens setup. Also shown are a sample radiograph and densitogram made using 2.8 radiation and a densitogram made using 2.3 radiation. The resolution limit of the Bragg Fresnel lens is 3 m.

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Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 72, No. 1, January 2001

Plasma diagnostics

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FIG. 5. High-magnication 93 point-projection radiograph of 7.5 m W and 8 m glass bers, along with a densitogram of each object, showing the effects of diffraction, refraction, and reection.

resolution of this image, obtained on Kodak DEF lm using 35 keV x rays from a 25 m Nb wire X pinch, appears to be wave-optics limited to 1.32 m. We have not yet had a chance to fully analyze the image taking into account the details of the spectrum, the wire materials and a range of possible submicron source sizes. Therefore, at this stage we claim only that we can resolve spatial features as small as 1.32 m in high magnication images. To investigate the line and continuum x-ray radiation emitted from X pinches, a convex KAP or mica crystal spectrograph and a spherically focussing mica crystal spectrograph were used.7,8 The spectra shown in Fig. 6, obtained using a convex mica crystal spectrograph, were from a 25 m Nb wire X pinch that produced three bright x-ray sources, two of which were clearly different types of spectra. We infer that one of these sources spot 2 possessed a higher density than the other source spot 3 , as suggested by the narrower, more intense lines relative to the continuum emitted by spot 3. When an X-pinch x-ray burst has the broadened spectral lines and higher continuum indicative of higher density, the images made using this radiation have the best spatial resolution. Figure 6 c contains highmagnication radiographs of an 8 m glass ber imaged using radiation from the three spots in Fig. 6 a . Spot 1 was barely able to produce an image, and spot 3 produced an image with 510 m spatial resolution. It is worth noting that 510 m spatial resolution is quite adequate for exploding wire experiments that use a magnication of 410. Therefore, in such experiments we obtain one or two good quality images on almost every pulse, even if the X-pinch spectrum is one that gives relatively poor resolution. On the basis of our spectroscopic and imaging experiments, we conclude that the smallest X-pinch x-ray sources, yielding the highest quality images, are achieved when the

FIG. 6. a Spectra from three x-ray sources with different parameters produced in a single 25 m Nb X pinch, obtained using a convex mica crystal spectrograph; b densitograms of the spectra radiated from spots 2 and 3; c radiograph containing three images of an 8 m glass ber made from the three sources in this X pinch, as indicated.

continuum component dominates the spectrum. The intense, narrow line radiation is associated with bright emission points that are generally larger than 1 m,9 which prevents a spatial resolution better than a few m from being achieved. Empirically, the best X-pinch wires for high-resolution radiography are the ones known to have slower expansion rates and higher boiling points, such as Mo, Pd, and Nb, but also Ti, NiCr, Ta, W, and Pt when prominent line radiation is ltered out. An exception to this general rule is Al, but highresolution images such as the one in Fig. 2 are obtained only by eliminating the Al line radiation through the use of a 12.5 m Ti lter. The continuum portion of the x-ray spectrum appears to depend weakly on the wire material Z , which suggests that the continuum in the few keV range may be Planckian rather than thermal bremsstrahlung. A set of fast response, diamond photoconducting diodes PCDs 10 used with combinations of Be, Ti, and/or Al lters were used to determine the duration of x-ray pulses in spectral bands with lower cutoffs of 1.56 keV. The PCD signals were recorded using a Tektronix 694C 10 Gs/s digitizing oscilloscope. The duration of the x-ray pulses was a function of the lower cutoff energy of the lters, and decreased as the cutoff energy increased. All of the X pinches tested using this system produced radiation with energy 6 keV as measured using an 80 m Al 165 m Be lter on the PCD . In addition, the measured x-ray burst duration at the higher ra-

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FIG. 7. a Images of a 125 m slit obtained using a Kentech streak camera observing two 17 m Mo X pinches. The slit images of the X pinches were displaced vertically, with overlap near the a , and were swept in time from left to right; b , c densitograms of the images from each X pinch for the lters in part d ; d four different combination lters covering the slit; e a comparison of the densitograms through lter #3 of a static slit image and an image from part a ; f a pinhole image of the radiation from X pinch 2 showing three distinct spots, correlating with the three radiation bursts in part a .

diation energies was less than 0.25 ns, the effective time resolution of the diagnostic system. In order to achieve better time resolution, experiments were carried out using a Kentech x-ray streak camera with sweep speeds as fast as 15 ns for the full sweep 3.5 cm and using a 120 m entrance slit width. Figure 7 shows a streak image obtained using a 15 ns full sweep of the radiation from two 17 m Mo wire X pinches. The radiation from the two X pinches is displaced vertically because of their separation in the XP pulser diode gap, but the images overlap slightly at the level of the a that marks Fig. 7 a . b and c show lineouts in the time direction through the parts of the images covered by the four lters that were placed over the entrance slit, as shown in Fig. 7 d . From this gure, we can

see that the two X pinches had their rst x-ray bursts almost simultaneously, as might be expected for identical X pinches. However, X pinch 1 had only a single intense burst followed by a weak secondary burst 1 ns later, while X pinch 2 had two nearly equally intense bursts 1 and 5 ns after the rst one. Indeed, the pinhole photograph of X pinch 2 shows 3 small spots in radiation above 3 keV, as shown in Fig. 7 f . Notice that the pulses are narrower as the lter efcacy increases. See lineouts 14 in Fig. 7 c and 13 in Fig. 7 b . There is no lineout 4 in Fig. 7 b because that portion of the image from X pinch 1 was obscured by the image of X pinch 2. To obtain estimates for the x-ray pulse duration, the widths of the pulses in these lineouts were compared with the width of a static slit image using the same lters on a different but otherwise identical pulse. The pulse widths for lters 24 in Fig. 7 d were 140 ps, 100 ps, and 80 ps, respectively, assuming Gaussian proles for the pulse widths. Because of the weakness and low energy of the secondary burst from X pinch 1, any radiograph obtained with 3 keV radiation would have had a time resolution of 150 ps. Similarly, with X pinch 2, the use of either lter combination 3 or 4 would have given 100 ps resolution. Even lter combination 2 would give 1 ns time resolution combining the rst two bursts because the third burst would contribute little to the radiograph . We conclude by noting that the very small dimensions of the source above 1.5 keV, 3 keV, etc., the source intensity, and the short pulse duration make the X pinch x-ray source a very interesting physical entity. We thank Victor Serlin of the Naval Research Laboratory for lending us the fast response time PCDs, and the Tektronix Corp. for lending us the 694C oscilloscope. We are especially indebted to the Plasma Physics group at Imperial College, London for lending us the Kentech x-ray streak camera. We also thank our colleagues, Dr. Yacob Dimant and Dr. John Greenly for helpful discussions. This research was supported in part by DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-98ER54496 and in part by Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, Contract No. BD 9356.
T. A. Shelkovenko, S. A. Pikuz, A. R. Mingaleev, and D. A. Hammer, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 70, 667 1999 . 2 D. B. Sinars, T. A. Shelkovenko, S. A. Pikuz, Min Hu, V. M. Romanova, K. M. Chandler, J. B. Greenly, D. A. Hammer, and B. R. Kusse, Phys. Plasmas 7, 429 2000 . 3 S. A. Pikuz, T. A. Shelkovenko, D. B. Sinars, J. B. Greenly, Y. S. Dimant, and D. A. Hammer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4313 1999 . 4 D. H. Kalantar, Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1993. 5 A. I. Erko, V. V. Aristov, and B. Vidal, Diffraction X-ray Optics IOP, Bristol, 1996 , Chap. 4. 6 Yu. A. Agafonov et al., Sov. Tech. Phys. Lett. 18, 533 1992 . 7 A. Ya. Faenov et al., Phys. Scr. 50, 333 1994 . 8 I. Yu. Skobelev et al., JETP 81, 692 1995 . 9 S. A. Pikuz et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 68, 740 1997 . 10 Victor Serlin private communication .
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