Interpretation of plasma opening switch voltage measurements

There are at least two levels of interpretation involved in the process of analyzing data from opening switch experiments in which the voltage at the switch is not directly measured. The first, and most obvious, is determining which features of the inferred voltage correspond to the actual opening switch voltage, and which are artifacts of either approximations or errors in the correction algorithm, or manifestations of finite signal to noise. The second level of interpretation corresponds to the model used to try to match features of the voltage waveform to physical processes occurring in the switch. Both of these aspects of interpretation are discussed in the context of experimental results from Decade Module 1 at Maxwell Physics International.