Electron Cross-field Transport in a Miniaturized Cylindrical Hall Thruster

Technical Report · Fri Oct 14 04:00:00 EDT 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/899585· OSTI ID:899585

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 crossfield 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 {nu}{sub b} has to be on the order of the Bohm value, {nu}{sub B} {approx} {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 ({approx} 10{sup -4} Torr).

• Research Organization: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE - Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH03073
• OSTI ID: 899585
• Report Number(s): PPPL-4118
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ELECTRONS
Hall Thrusters
PERFORMANCE
TANKS
THRUSTERS
TRANSPORT
anomalous collision
electron crossfield transport