Gas-puff-on-wire-array structured load experiments on the GIT-12 facility

The use of structured loads is a promising approach to creation of a long implosion time plasma radiation source. Our previous experiments with gas-puff-on-wire-array loads on the GIT-4 generator (1.5 MA, 120 ns) have shown significant increase in radiation power and decrease in radiation pulse duration due to fast switching of the pinch current from the outer gas shell to the inner wire array. Our recent experiments carried out on the GIT-12 generator were aimed at obtaining a better understanding of the process of current switching from the outer gas shell to the inner wire array. In these experiments tungsten wire array was used for the inner shell. Different gases - argon, krypton, and xenon - were tested as a material of the outer gas puff. The experimental results and their discussion will be presented.