3D electrical discharge creation (Zap Energy's Z-pinch)

[artis]

This is less of a nuclear physics question and more of an EE one, but I think this is the right place for it.

There is a startup called Zap Energy and their approach to fusion is to create a inertial confinement pinch with an electrical discharge.
This is a bit similar to what the Sandia labs are doing only they use a metal liner as their imploding piston.

Now as you can see from the diagram attached below, the approach is to use a cylindrical volume with a central electrode and the outer cylinder wall as the second electrode. Due to a high PD across the two electrode a discharge forms and due to B field the discharge is driven along until it moves axially inwards from all sides.
The thing that I can't believe is how can one make the electrical discharge symmetrical from all sides. One has to create a sheet/plane/film like discharge that is 3D and fast moving without the discharge to collapse into a single rod/lighting like discharge, how can one do this?
Electrical discharges from what I know are fundamentally unstable, or is it that the current is so large that the discharge has to be film like as the large current would be too large for a rod like discharge?

 

[artis]

I don't believe no one has any insight on this

 

[Astronuc]

Electrical discharges from what I know are fundamentally unstable,

Hence a pulse or transient scheme.

I expect the intent is to use I(z) x B(θ), to achieve radial compression very quickly, if I'm ready that right. So, a type of pinch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinch_(plasma_physics)

One approach to solving the stability problems seen in pinch machines was the concept of "fast pinch". In this approach, the electrical current that generated the pinch was applied in a single brief burst. The burst was too brief to cause the entire plasma to collapse, instead only the outer layers were compressed, and so rapidly that a shock wave formed. The goal was to use this shock wave to compress the plasma instead of the normal pinch that attempted to collapse the entire plasma column.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theta_pinch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-pinch

I'd have to read up on their concept.