Concept of a Magnetically Enhanced Vacuum Arc Thruster With Controlled Distribution of Ion Flux

Abstract

In this paper, we present a concept of a magnetically enhanced vacuum arc thruster with an additional coil to control and shape the spatial distribution of the outlet ion flux. We introduce several operation modes by considering the operation of the original thruster and drawing an analogy with the technological setups equipped with vacuum arc plasma sources. To discuss the effect of the additional magnetic field, a plasma optic model is applied. Important regularity is deduced from the comparative analysis of the microthruster and macrosetup plasmas: quasineutrality of the plasmas is the same (about 10 -6 ), and the magnetic control is applied effectively when the plasma density n (m -3 ) and a spatial extent a (m) of the domain occupied by the plasma are connected by the dependence na 3 = 10 -14 .