Building Targets for Sandia’s Z Machine
We fabricate specialized material targets for high-energy physics research, using precision electrochemical deposition processes to engineer controlled metallic coatings and interfaces for extreme-environment testing.
The most powerful pulsed-power facility on Earth
Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine, in Albuquerque, concentrates electrical energy into extremely short pulses of enormous power. Sandia describes it as the world’s most powerful and efficient laboratory radiation source.
Researchers use Z to study how matter behaves at extreme conditions: subjecting materials to immense pressures, running fusion experiments, and generating data no other facility can. Every one of those experiments depends on the target at its center.
- ~26M
- amps of current
- 350 TW
- peak X-ray power
- 2.7 MJ
- X-ray output
Targets engineered at the interface
VastVision fabricates specialized material targets for high-energy physics research. We use precision electrochemical deposition to build controlled metallic coatings, and to engineer the interfaces between them, for testing in extreme environments.
When a single shot produces data that cannot be gathered anywhere else, the target has to be right. Controlling the deposition itself, layer by layer, is how we control what the experiment sees.
How a target comes together
- 1SpecifyDefine the target with the research team: materials, layers, and the conditions it will see.
- 2PrepareClean and prepare the substrate so the first interface starts right.
- 3DepositBuild metallic coatings by precision electrochemical deposition, layer by layer.
- 4CharacterizeImage and analyze the result with in-house electron microscopy and EDS.
The lab behind the work
All capabilities →Need a target built for an extreme environment?
Bring us the experiment and the conditions. We'll scope the materials and the process.