Experimental Demonstration of the Stabilizing Effect of Dielectric Coatings on Magnetically Accelerated Imploding Metallic Liners

Phys Rev Lett. 2016 Feb 12;116(6):065001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.065001. Epub 2016 Feb 10.

Abstract

Enhanced implosion stability has been experimentally demonstrated for magnetically accelerated liners that are coated with 70 μm of dielectric. The dielectric tamps liner-mass redistribution from electrothermal instabilities and also buffers coupling of the drive magnetic field to the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability. A dielectric-coated and axially premagnetized beryllium liner was radiographed at a convergence ratio [CR=Rin,0/Rin(z,t)] of 20, which is the highest CR ever directly observed for a strengthless magnetically driven liner. The inner-wall radius Rin(z,t) displayed unprecedented uniformity, varying from 95 to 130 μm over the 4.0 mm axial height captured by the radiograph.