Soft X-ray source with plasma open switch

Three aspects of soft X-ray technology are examined. First, the possibility of X-ray source creation with the help of a 'hot spot' is questionable as it is difficult to control 'hot spot' plasma parameters and consequently it is difficult to increase power in these sources. Second, the efficiency of a gas puff X-ray source is small at current microsecond rise time; the low efficiency is the result of the small initial surface density of the liner. Third, when one uses the water line driver for gas puff, one can obtain suitable efficiency, but such driver is very expensive and unwieldy. Thus, the development of a simple and cheap X-ray source driver with 100-ns risetime seems reasonable. Such a source has been studied. In this source the Na wire array implosion was produced by a 100-ns risetime driver. The driver was formed by an LC circuit with open switch.