Experimental study of electromagnetically enhanced laser propulsion performance

Abstract

Laser ablation propulsion performance, especially the improvement of ablation efficiency, has been the focus of technological development in the field. Drawing on the principle of plasma acceleration advancement of pulse plasma thrust, using electromagnetic field enhances laser induced plasma, forming better advancement performance, is a new method of electromagnetic enhanced laser propulsion performance. In this paper, the combination of laser propulsion and electromagnetic enhancement field is used to improve the propulsion performance. Firstly, the plasma is generated by laser ablation, and then the plasma is further accelerated by electromagnetic field, so that the plasma generated by laser ablation can obtain higher speed under the interaction of electromagnetic field, so as to improve the specific impulse and efficiency. The theoretical method of laser-ablated plasma electromagnetic acceleration is discussed, and an experimental platform for laser-ablated plasma electromagnetic acceleration is constructed. The enhancement effects of impulse, specific impulse and efficiency are studied experimentally. The results show that with the increase of laser energy, the optimization trend of propulsion performance parameters first increases and then decreases. When the electromagnetic enhancement field is coupled, the propulsion performance of laser electromagnetic enhancement is significantly enhanced compared with that of laser ablative propulsion. At the optimal working point, the efficiency is increased by 5.1%.