Computation of Ion Collection by a Large Rocket-Mounted Mass-Spectrometer Plate at a Large Drawing-in Potential

摘要

Calculations of the ion current density at the central point of a charged mass-spectrometer plate mounted on a rocket were extended into the regime of very small Debye lengths. Since self-consistent solutions are numerically difficult to obtain in this regime (especially for large dimensionless drawing-in potentials), the investigation was carried out with the aid of a linearized-space-charge model. Use of the model provides a potential distribution characterized by a Debye-length-like parameter lambda(H). The nature of the ion trajectories in the strong electric field is studied, and correlations between lambda(H) and the true Debye length are discussed. (Author)