Nuclear engineering

Electrical engineering

Physics

Aerospace engineering

Z-pinch

Capacitor

Engineering physics

Inertial confinement fusion

Engineering

Voltage

Power (physics)

Nuclear physics

Power density

Fusion power

Quantum mechanics

Plasma

Pulsed power

Physics of Plasmas

Pulsed power accelerators compress electrical energy in space and time to provide versatile experimental platforms for high energy density and inertial confinement fusion science. The 80-TW “Z” pulsed power facility at Sandia National Laboratories is the largest pulsed power device in the world today. Z discharges up to 22 MJ of energy stored in its capacitor banks into a current pulse that rises in 100 ns and peaks at a current as high as 30 MA in low-inductance cylindrical targets. Considerable progress has been made over the past 15 years in the use of pulsed power as a precision scientific tool. This paper reviews developments at Sandia in inertial confinement fusion, dynamic materials science, x-ray radiation science, and pulsed power engineering, with an emphasis on progress since a previous review of research on Z in Physics of Plasmas in 2005.

Review of pulsed power-driven high energy density physics research on Z at Sandia