Z Pulsed Power Facility

35°02′08″N 106°32′33″W / 35.035451°N 106.542522°W / 35.035451; -106.542522

Overhead view from a fisheye lens of the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratory. Due to the extremely high voltage, the power feeding equipment is submerged in concentric chambers of 2 megalitres (2,000 m³) of transformer oil and 2.3 megalitres (2,300 m³) of deionized water, which act as insulators. Nevertheless, the electromagnetic pulse when the machine is discharged causes impressive lightning, referred to as a "flashover", which can be seen around many of the metallic objects in the machine.
Z machine cross section
Z machine diagram

The Z Pulsed Power Facility, informally known as the Z machine or simply Z,[1] is the largest high frequency electromagnetic wave generator in the world, operated by Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

It has primarily been used as an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research facility, including the magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) approach, and for testing materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. In particular, it gathers data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons and eventual fusion pulsed power plants.

  1. ^ Stein, Ben (March 2002). "The Con-Artist Physics of "Ocean's Eleven"". APS News. Vol. 11, no. 3. Retrieved 28 July 2020.