Spatially resolved Thomson scattering measurements of electron properties across the acceleration region of a high-power magnetically shielded Hall effect thruster

• DOI: 10.1063/5.0213928
• Publication Date: 2024-09-20T10:25:23Z
• Authors: Julian Lopez-Uric...; Jean Luis Suazo B...; Naia Butler-Craig; Mitchell L. R. Wa...
• Keywords: Shielded cable; Thomson scattering

Noninvasive measurements of electron properties in a Hall effect thruster (HET) are needed to understand the physical processes acceleration region and validate simulations. This paper presents spatially resolved laser Thomson scattering (LTS) across entire HET. The test article is H9, 9 kW class magnetically shielded H9 operated on krypton at facility pressure 1.2 × 10−5 Torr Kr (1.6 mPa). three discharge conditions: 171 V, 35 A, an inner coil current (Iic) 4.11 outer (Ioc) 2.27 A as baseline 6 condition; 154 34.8 Iic Ioc vary voltage; 34.4 4.52 2.5 magnetic field strength. At each condition, we measured axial profiles density temperature along channel centerline from 5% 95% length downstream exit plane. also measure profile azimuthal drift velocity. We minimum 1.3 1017 m−3, peak temperatures around 40 eV, velocity 680 km/s. results suggest presence anomalous heating demonstrate that low voltages allow LTS access