Sandia National Laboratories pitches a 10x larger successor to the Z machine to Congress
Sandia National Laboratories is proposing a successor to the Z machine, the world's most powerful pulsed-power X-ray source, that would be 10 times larger. The current Z machine fires about 200 times a year, delivering 26 million amps from 2,160 capacitors in 100 nanoseconds, generating enough energy to power 100 homes for minutes and causing seismic tremors felt in the nearby Sandia Mountains. The new concept aims to reach extreme densities and pressures currently unattainable, but no cost, site, or timeline has been published.
