Study of 2.5∼10cm Size Microwave Discharge Ion Thruster

Abstract

Several experimental and numerical simulation results for the development of miniature microwave discharge ion thrusters have been reported. The important points to improve the performance of the ion thruster are the shape of the antenna for microwave emission and the magnetic configuration in its thruster head. The extracted ion beam current of 12mA is obtained in conditions of input 2.45GHz microwave power of 8W and propellant (xenon) flow rate of 0.2 sccm with a star type antenna. A numerical simulation code coupling the particle-in-cell method and the finite difference time domain method was used to know plasma behavior in the discharge chamber of an ion thruster.