HIGH-RESOLUTION TIME-DIMENSIONAL AND 2-DIMENSIONAL SPACE-RESOLVED X-RAY-IMAGING OF PLASMAS AT NOVA

A streaked multiple pinhole camera technique, first used by P. Choi and co-workers [C. Deeney and P. Choi, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 60, 3558 (1989); P. Choi and R. Aliaga, ibid. 61, 2747 (1990)] to record time- and two-dimensional space-resolved soft x-ray images of plasma pinches, has been implemented on laser plasmas at NOVA. The instrument is particularly useful for time-resolved imaging of small sources (< 150 mum in size) such as implosions for which the necessary alignment accuracy is relaxed from less-than-or-equal-to 10 mum for a single pinhole, to 200 mum for a nine-pinhole column. Results at 20 mum, 30-ps resolution are presented for > 2.5-keV imaging, complementing the existing 1-3-keV streaked x-ray microscope capabilities at NOVA.