Advantages of a soft protective layer for good signal-to-noise ratio proton radiographs in high debris environments

Abstract Proton radiography is a very powerful diagnostic but in some high debris environments it may be challenging to get a good signal-to-noise ratio radiograph to gain insights into the electric and magnetic field topology, and thus the basic physics. Such environments are produced for example on z-pinches and also on lasers such as the National Ignition Facility. We demonstrate here the feasibility of clean, very high signal-to-noise ratio proton radiographs in extremely hostile environments.