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Updated: Jul 26, 2025

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Experimental study of the mechanism of prepulse current on Z-pinch plasma using Faraday rotation diagnosis
Zhiyuan Jiang1, Jian Wu1, Ziwei Chen1
1State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province 710049, China.
Abstract:
The prepulse current is an effective way to optimize the load structure and improve the implosion quality of the Z-pinch plasma. Investigating the strong coupling between the preconditioned plasma and pulsed magnetic field is essential for the design and improvement of prepulse current. In this study, the mechanism of the prepulse current on the Z-pinch plasma was revealed by determining the two-dimensional magnetic field distribution of preconditioned and nonpreconditioned single-wire Z-pinch plasma with a high-sensitivity Faraday rotation diagnosis. When the wire was nonpreconditioned, the current path was consistent with the plasma boundary. When the wire was preconditioned, the distributions of current and mass density presented good imploding axial uniformity, and the imploding speed of the current shell was higher than that of the mass shell. In addition, the mechanism of the prepulse current suppressing the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability was revealed, which formed a sharp density profile of the imploding plasma and slowed the shock wave driven by the magnetic pressure. This discovery is essential and instructive for the design of preconditioned wire-array Z-pinch experiments.
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