  We propose to construct a compact and portable x-pinch driver with x-ray
radiation performance, comparable to standard x-pinch drivers. Such a new
x-pinch driver was recently designed, fabricated and tested at the Idaho
Accelerator Center. The generator is based on two slow LTD bricks combined into
one solid unit, and can be described by a simple RLC circuit with four fast
140-nF, 100-kV capacitors that store up to 2.8 kJ. The test data reveals that
when charged to 80 kV, the driver supplies 185-kA peak-current into a short
Ni-wire load with 220-ns, 10-90%, rise time. The total internal inductance of
our driver was measured to be about 60 nH. The revised driver model shows that
when fully charged to 100 kV, the driver will supply 180-kA peak-current with
150-ns rise-time into the x-pinch load. The corresponding current rise rate is
about 1.2 kA/ns. To prove the driver x-pinch efficiency and to estimate the
x-ray radiation performance, we could, for example, image an exploding wires,
placed in a separate HV pulser, with our x-pinch x-ray radiation source. The
study of exploding wires helps to understand the behavior of a warm dense
matter, and our x-pinch driver can be part of the diagnostics needed for this
study which is currently under progress at the IAC. Our driver contains no oil
inside, is very compact and portable, and can be easily relocated to
practically anywhere, which makes it an ideal backlighting diagnostic tool in
many areas of plasma physics, biology, and industry where a bright, fast, and
small x-pinch radiation source is required.
