A New Model on the Control of Ion Current Oscillations and Its Influence to the Thrust Efficiency of Hall Thrusters

Abstract

Simulation on the control of the discharge current oscillation is performed by introducing the cross-field transport of Xenon ions in the channel. The ion current oscillation and the thrust efficiency are shown by comparing our simulation with the observation. It is shown for the first time that the ion current becomes stable and the thrust efficiency is improved when the ion mobility decreases in the channel of Hall thrusters, by comparing with the experimental results of TALT-2a Hall thruster.