Efficient production of hot plasmas through multiple-wire implosion in transmission line generators

Model equations for the implosion of multiple-wire arrays mounted across the electrodes of a transmission line generator are used to obtain an expression for the energy-coupling efficiency. For a useful class of imploding loads, the efficiency is shown to depend on a single dimensionless parameter. Furthermore, the efficiency curve has a maximum, and this permits an explicit optimization of the wire load parameters in terms of the machine parameters.