Operation and empirical modeling of the plasma opening switch

Summary form only given, as follows. Plasma opening switch (POS) experiments have been conducted on the DNA BLACKJACK 5 and ACE accelerators at Maxwell Laboratories. On BLACKJACK 5 one of the switch geometries increased the value of dI/dt delivered to a ring e-beam load by a factor of 5 to a value of 2×10¹⁴ A/s. Bremsstrahlung pulse shapes indicate a power pulse compression of greater than a factor of 2. Work on the ACE accelerator has demonstrated the capability of the POS to perform as a final opening switch in an inductive energy storage system. BLACKJACK 5 and ACE POS experiments have been designed to allow comparison of switch operation over three distinct switch conduction time regimes: 50 to 100 ns for BLACKJACK 5, 200 to 400 ns for a fuse-driven configuration on ACE, and 500 to 2000 ns for a capacitor-bank-driven configuration on ACE. The data from these different experiments were compared with the predictions of a plasma erosion and an ion piston switch model