Enhanced Performance of Cylindrical Hall Thrusters

[摘要] The cylindrical thruster differs significantly in its underlying physical mechanisms from the conventional annular Hall thruster. It features high ionization efficiency, quiet operation, ion acceleration in a large volume-to-surface ratio channel, and performance comparable with the state-of-the-art conventional Hall thrusters. Very significant plume narrowing, accompanied by the increase of the energetic ion fraction and improvement of ion focusing, led to 50%–60% increase of the thruster anode efficiency. These improvements were achieved by overrunning the discharge current in the magnetized thruster plasma.

[发布日期] 2007-05-14

[学科分类] 原子、分子光学和等离子物理

[关键词] ACCELERATION;ANODES;EFFICIENCY;FOCUSING;IONIZATION;PERFORMANCE;PLASMA;PLUMES;TAIL IONS;THRUSTERS Hall Thrusters