Recent pulsed-power technology advances in the pulsed power sciences center at Sandia National Laboratories

In the presentation we present a survey of the application driven development of new high-current (25+ MA), fast risetime (~ 100 ns) pulsed-power technology at the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), but this paper only focuses on megagauss magnetic field driver development in order to preserve first-publication rights for the co-authors with the other technologies. Thus in the presentation we note that the Z accelerator has fired nearly 200 shots since the upgrade, and is now being operated at 4 to 5 shots per week. Initial failures after the upgrade have been resolved with improvements in the 6-MV laser-triggered switches, the oil water barriers, and the insulator stack. With the upgrade Z is also able to produce tailored current profiles for isentropic compression of materials using staggered timing of the laser triggered switches. We also describe the Linear Transformer Driver (LTD) technology that is being investigated as a potential follow-on pulsed power technology for the design of the next larger machine that has a high repetition-rate (up to 0.1 Hz) capability. Ten 1-MA LTD modules have been fabricated and are being setup as a 1 MV, 1 MA sub-module prototype. A lower-current, more compact LTD design is also being tested for radiography applications. For both of these designs 200-kV, 25-kA gas switches are being developed and tested to both increase switch lifetime and to minimize cost. A compact, portable, 2-MA, 2 μsec driver, which we describe in this paper, is being developed to drive single-turn magnetic field coils for laser-plasma experiments in vacuum. (4 pages)