Hall Thruster Performance and Plasma Acceleration Processes

Abstract

Numerical analyses and experiments of a Hall thruster have been conducted not only to improve thruster performance but also to understand the plasma acceleration processes. 1kW class Hall thrusters were fabricated to measure thrust, ion beam current, and distributions of plasma density, electron temperature, and space potential in the acceleration channel. Two-dimensional ion flow model was made to analytically examine the plasma acceleration processes in the channel, and the analytical results are compared with the experimental ones.