Study on the ionization and acceleration of a microwave discharge cusped field thruster

Abstract

The microwave discharge cusped field thruster is a novel concept electric micro propulsion device, also a candidate thruster for the gravitational detection mission. A coaxial transmission line resonator is utilized to feed the microwave into the thruster to generate Xe plasma steadily with a mass flow rate as low as 0.1 sccm. Due to the separation of ionization and acceleration, the thruster performs high operation mode stability over a wide range of voltage in low mass flow conditions. Experimental and simulation methods are carried out to study the ionization and ion acceleration of the thruster. The results show that in operating conditions with a mass flow rate of 0.1 sccm, an anode voltage of 0 V to 1000 V, and a microwave power of 2 W, the right-hand circularly polarized wave (R wave) and the ordinary wave (O wave) play the most important role in the ionization process. The ion acceleration region locates around the exit magnetic separatrix, and the acceleration region tends to converge toward the separatrix as the anode voltage increases, resulting in an increased focus of the thruster plume and concentration of the ion energy distribution. Due to the separation of the ionization and acceleration regions, the thruster performs a divergence efficiency of 0.5–0.8, and an acceleration efficiency of 0.9.