An optical diagnostic for xenon Hall thrusters including metastable contributions

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Abstract

A laboratory Hall-effect thruster plume has been studied using optical emission spectroscopy. The emissions are compared to a collisional-radiative model which incorporates emission enhancement from fast moving ions and metastable states. Spatially resolved electron temperatures have been measured using the model via imaging spectroscopy and the Abel inversion. The results show a flat temperature distribution for the region of the plume investigated. By comparing the data to two forms of the model, one which Includes the fast ion contributions and one which does not, we show that it is possible to determine the beam divergence optically.

Publication Title

Collection of Technical Papers - AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE 42nd Joint Propulsion Conference

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