A 1-d, hard x-ray pinhole camera for flash x-ray pulsed-power accelerators

A time-resolved pinhole camera has been constructed to diagnose the x-ray emitting source of the SATURN accelerator. The detector for the camera is a 20-channel, linear array of plastic scintillators, placed beneath adjustable jaws; optical signals are connected by fiber-optic links to a remote bank of photomultiplier (PM) tubes. Variations in the channel to-channel response have been reduced by exposing the complete array to a nearly uniform pulsed x-ray field (Febetron 706, e-beam tube with Ta converter) and adjusting the gains on the PM tubes. Experiments under SATURN to date have yielded information on the simultaneity of the source rings, x-ray pulse widths, and the duration of hot spots. The camera complements existing diagnostics, such as time-integrated and multiframe, gated cameras and non-spatially resolved PIN and scintillator-photodiode detectors.