Simulation of the plume generated by a micro laser-ablation plasma thruster

摘要

An end-to-end model is presented of the transient plume created by a micro laser-ablation plasma thruster. The laser ablation and plasma formation processes are modeled using a semi-analytical approach. This procedure provides boundary conditions at the target surface for the plume model that is based on a particle computational approach. The present study considers a 2 W diode-based laser irradiating a poly-vinyl chloride target over a spot radius of 10 μm for a pulse length of 100 μsec. The plume simulations reveal many details of the multi-component plasma expansion. The results are used to predict plume induced contamination effects.