Preconditioned wire array Z-pinches driven by a double pulse current generator

Suppression of the core-corona structure and wire ablation in wire array Z-pinches is investigated using a novel double pulse current generator 'Qin-1' facility. The 'Qin-1' facility allows coupling a similar to 10 kA 20 ns prepulse generator with a similar to 0.8 MA 160 ns main current generator. The tailored prepulse current preheats wires to a gaseous state and the time interval between the prepulse and the main current pulse allows formation of a more uniform mass distribution for the implosion. The implosion of a gasified two aluminum-wire array showed no ablation phase and allowed all array mass to participate in the implosion. The initial perturbations formed from the inhomogeneous ablation were suppressed, however, the magneto Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instability during the implosion was still significant and further researches on the generation and development of the MRT instabilities of this gasified wire array are needed.