Triple nozzle gas-puff z-pinch implosions on COBRA

We present investigations using a triple-nozzle, 6cm outer diameter gas puff for fast z-pinch implosions. Experiments are conducted on the 1MA, 200ns COBRA generator at Cornell University. Centimeter thickness cylindrical shells of neon/argon gas at typical densities of n o ∼ 10 18 cm −3 are imploded onto a 4cm outer diameter inner gas shell and both subsequently converge at the pinch axis. The configuration is examined with and without a central gas jet and the influence on instability growth rates is investigated. The structure of the imploding plasma sheath and Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities are imaged and quantified under different mass loading and radiative efficacy in each of the three puffs.