Towards Reduced Wall Effect Hall Plasma Accelerators

摘要

The primary objective of our existing grant, as stated in our original proposal, was to (i) develop a better understanding of the electron transport in Hall thrusters; (ii) greatly reduce or eliminate the influence of the walls on the electron transport; and (iii) replace the role of the wall in electron conduction with enhancement and control of the bulk conductivity. in this way, the selection of wall material and thruster geometry can be made independently of its effect that the wall will have on conductivity, so as to optimize the thruster performance with respect to reliability and service life.