Measurements of magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability growth during the implosion of initially solid Al tubes driven by the 20-MA, 100-ns Z facility.

The first controlled experiments measuring the growth of the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability in fast (∼100 ns) Z-pinch plasmas are reported. Sinusoidal perturbations on the surface of an initially solid Al tube (liner) with wavelengths of 25-400 µm were used to seed the instability. Radiographs with 15 µm resolution captured the evolution of the outer liner surface. Comparisons with numerical radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations show remarkably good agreement down to 50 µm wavelengths.