Electron cross-field transport in a miniaturized cylindrical Hall thruster

Conventional annular Hall thrusters become inefficient when scaled to low power. Cylindrical Hall thrusters, which have lower surface-to-volume ratio, are more promising for scaling down. They presently exhibit performance comparable with conventional annular Hall thrusters. The present paper gives...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on plasma science 2006-04, Vol.34 (2), p.132-141
Main Authors: Smirnov, A.N., Raitses, Y., Fisch, N.J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration
Annular
Bohm diffusion
Conductivity
Discharge
Electromagnetism
electron transport
Electrons
Exact sciences and technology
Frequency
Hall discharge
Hall thrusters
Ion and plasma propulsion
Langmuir probes
Magnetic field measurement
Magnetic fields
Optimization
Particle physics
Physics
Physics of gases, plasmas and electric discharges
Physics of plasmas and electric discharges
Plasma devices
plasma propulsion
Plasma transport processes
Probes
Propulsion
Tanks
Thrusters
Transport
turbulence
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Summary:Conventional annular Hall thrusters become inefficient when scaled to low power. Cylindrical Hall thrusters, which have lower surface-to-volume ratio, are more promising for scaling down. They presently exhibit performance comparable with conventional annular Hall thrusters. The present paper gives a review of the experimental and numerical investigations of electron cross-field transport in the 2.6-cm miniaturized cylindrical Hall thruster (100-W power level). We show that, in order to explain the discharge current observed for the typical operating conditions, the electron anomalous collision frequency /spl nu//sub B/ has to be on the order of the Bohm value, /spl nu//sub B/ /spl ap/ /spl omega//sub c//16. The contribution of electron-wall collisions to cross-field transport is found to be insignificant. The optimal regimes of thruster operation at low background pressure (below 10/sup -5/ torr) in the vacuum tank appear to be different from those at higher pressure (/spl sim/10/sup -4/ torr).
ISSN:0093-3813
1939-9375
DOI:10.1109/TPS.2006.872185