Plasma convergence studies via visible radiation diagnostic in wire-array Z-pinch implosions

A 1-D visible radiation diagnostic system is developed to investigate plasma convergence via visible radiation with one-dimensional space and continuous time resolution in wire-array Z-pinch experiments performed on Qiangguang-I facility. The loads used in the experiments include single tungsten array and single aluminum array. During the early stages of a wire array Z-pinch implosion, low density precursor plasma is formed and streams toward the axis by the virtue of the Lorentz force. Due to trailing mass around the array plasma, some visible radiation is observed during the run-in and run-out stagnation phase. Also, the implosion tracery can be derived from visible radiation streak images. When the drive current scales from 1.0 MA to 1.5 MA, the implosion compression ratio of the wire a