Summary form only given. Considerable advances have been made in understanding the conduction and opening phases of the /spl mu/s conduction time opening switch. Much less understood is the power flow out of the switch into the downstream magnetically insulated transmission line (MITL) as the switch opens. The current understanding of the opening process involves the formation of a fairly small (2-3 mm) vacuum gap. As the switch opens, emitted electrons, which are magnetically insulated in the switch gap, flow into the downstream MITL. Here the electron flow either returns to the cathode, is lost to the anode, or is transported to the diode load. At the load, the electrons either flow into the diode, where they become usable current, or they can be lost outside the diode. These issues have been explored using the particle-in-cell method. In particular, the effect of the downstream MITL geometry as well as the influence of the load impedance history on the vacuum electron flow has been addressed.
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