An alternative Hall thruster architecture that shifts the ionization and acceleration regions outside the plasma chamber is demonstrated. This unconventional design is here termed a “wall-less Hall thruster,” as the bulk of the magnetized discharge is no longer limited by solid boundaries. A 200 W prototype with permanent magnets has been developed and characterized. Experimental results concerning the thruster operation, discharge oscillations, electric field distribution, and ionization zone characteristics are presented and discussed. Our first experiments show that the cross-field discharge can be moved outside the cavity without drastically disturbing the ion production and acceleration mechanisms. This design offers the benefit of reduced plasma-wall interaction and lower wall losses, while also greatly facilitating diagnostic access to the entire discharge ionization and acceleration regions.
An experimental optimization of a Hall thruster in wall-less operation mode is performed with the PPS-Flex, a 1.5 kW class thruster capable of modifying the magnetic field topology over a broad range of configurations. The anode geometry and the magnetic topology have been modified to avoid interaction between the magnetic field lines and the anode surface, compared to the first wall-less Hall thruster prototype. The measurements of the thrust and far-field ion properties reveal that a satisfactory performance level can be obtained once the magnetic barrier is restored, and pave the way towards the development of a high-efficiency wall-less Hall thruster.
Emissive and Langmuir probes are two widely used plasma diagnostic techniques that, when used properly, give access to a wide range of information on the plasma's ions and electrons. We show here that their use in small and medium power Hall thrusters produces large perturbations in the discharge characteristics. Potential measurements performed by both probes and non-invasive Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy highlight significant discrepancies in the discharge profile. This phenomenon is observed both in the 200 W and the 1.5 kW-class thrusters. In order to have a better understanding of these perturbations, ion velocity distribution functions are acquired by LIF spectroscopy at different positions in the smaller thruster, with and without the probes. Emissive probes are shown to produce the biggest perturbation, shifting the acceleration region upstream. The probe insertion is also shown to have significant effect on both the average discharge current, increasing it by as much as 30%, and its harmonic content in both amplitude and spectrum. These perturbations appear as the probe tip passes a threshold located between 0 and 5 mm downstream of the thruster exit plane.
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