Many on-going European Space Agency (ESA) science and earth observation missions are based on precision attitude control and formation flying. All these missions impose strong requirements on propulsion system which should provide low thrust, low noise, and high-precision thrust vectors in up to 16 directions. Also as most of these missions have a platform with limited solar cell arrays, the power consumption of the propulsion system should be as low as possible. The idea of using a small high-efficiency multistage plasma thruster (HEMPT) system for such missions is very attractive because of its relatively low complexity and low system mass. Thus, the ability of downscaling a HEMPT to the µN range is investigated experimentally. A measurement campaign studying systematically the influence of the geometrical dimensions of main thruster parameters on operation, beam profile, and ion acceleration is presented. Additionally the anode material was varied and showed relevance to ion acceleration distribution. The minimum achieved thrust was 50 µN at an anode voltage of 600 V, corresponding to a specific impulse of 230 s. Operation points with thrusts of 180 and 360 µN demonstrate a specific impulse of 610 and 860 s, respectively.Index Terms-Electric propulsion, high-efficiency multistage plasma thruster (HEMPT), plasma devices, plasma diagnostics. NOMENCLATURE Airbus DSAirbus Defence and Space. CHT Cylindrical hall thruster. DCF Diverging cusped field thruster. DiDchamberInner diameter of discharge chamber.

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Wavelengths of the fine-structure transition 2s 2 S 1/2 -2p 2 P 1/2 in lithiumlike Sn 47ϩ and Xe 51ϩ have been determined using beam foil excitation and grazing incidence spectroscopy. Transition wavelengths of 114.895Ϯ0.008 Å for Sn 47ϩ and 103.475Ϯ0.007 Å for Xe 51ϩ have been measured. While there has been no previous measurement of this transition in Sn, the Xe result marks an improvement in accuracy of more than an order of magnitude compared with previous experiments. The achieved precision of 70 ppm for the 1/2-1/2 transition allows for a 0.1% QED test which establishes a new benchmark for Li-like ions in the medium Z range. The experimental uncertainty is smaller than the size of the smallest calculated contribution to the transition energy.

Be-like Ag43+, Sn46+, and Xe50+ ions were produced by beam-foil excitation at the UNILAC accelerator of the GSI. The wavelengths of the 2s2 1S0–2s2p 3P1 intercombination lines were measured using the GSI 5 m grazing incidence spectrometer. The projectile spectra were calibrated in situ with well known ionic lines of a VUV Penning discharge lamp. A precise determination of the Doppler shift was necessary. An experimental precision of 10-4 was realized. Our medium-Z experimental results represent the heaviest Be-like ions studied. They are compared with published MCDF and MBPT calculations along the isoelectronic Be-like series. Excellent agreement exists between our Xe-value and a recent result from an electron beam ion trap.

Studies on atomic layer deposition Al2O3/In0.53Ga0.47As interface formation mechanism based on air-gap capacitance-voltage method Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 122102 (2012) A mathematical model for void evolution in silicon by helium implantation and subsequent annealing process J. Appl. Phys. 112, 064302 (2012) Void evolution in silicon under inert and dry oxidizing ambient annealing and the role of a Si1−xGex epilayer cap J. Appl. Phys. 112, 054909 (2012) Additional information on AIP Conf. Proc. Abstract. The redistribution of implanted Rb and Cs profiles in amorphous silicon during solid-phase epitaxial recrystallization has been investigated by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and secondary ion mass spectroscopy. For the implantation dose used in these experiments, the alkali atoms segregate at the a-Si/c-Si interface during annealing resulting in concentration peaks near the interface. In this way, the alkali atoms are moved towards the surface. Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy in ion channeling configuration was performed to measure average recrystallization rates of the amorphous silicon layers. Preliminary studies on the influence of the alkali atoms on the solid-phase epitaxial regrowth rate reveal a strong retardation compared to the intrinsic recrystallization rate.

Abstract.Recently proposed space missions such as Darwin, eLISA and NGGM have encouraged the development of electric propulsion thrusters capable of operating in the micro-Newton (μN) thrust range. To meet these requirements, radio frequency (RF) gridded-ion thrusters need to be scaled down to a few centimeters in size. Due to the small size of these thrusters, it is important to accurately determine the thermal and performance parameters. To achieve this, a multi-physics performance model has been developed, composed of plasma discharge, 2D axisymmetric ion extraction, 3D electromagnetic and RF circuit models. The plasma discharge model itself is represented using 0D global, 2D axisymmetric and 3D molecular neutral gas, and Boltzmann electron transport sub-models. A 3D thermal model is introduced to determine the temperature distribution for various throttle points, using as inputs the plasma and electromagnetic field heating values obtained from the performance model. This also allows the validation of the performance model itself. Additionally, we analyze the effect the thruster's temperatures play on the plasma properties/performance and vice versa. The model is based on the RIT 3.5 thruster developed for the NGGM mission geometry and predicts the RIT 3.5 experimental data within approximately 10%.

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