Kr II Laser-Induced Fluorescence for Measuring Plasma Acceleration (Preprint)
Abstract
We present the application of laser-induced fluorescence of singly ionized krypton as a diagnostic technique for quantifying the electrostatic acceleration within the discharge of a laboratory cross-field plasma accelerator also known as a Hall effect thruster, which has heritage as spacecraft propulsion. The 728.98 nm Kr II transition from the metastable 5d4D7/2 to the 5p4P 5/2 was used for the measurement of laser-induced fluorescence within the plasma discharge. From these measurements, it is possible to measure velocity as the krypton ions are accelerated from near rest to approximately 21 km/s (190 eV). Ion temperature and the ion velocity distributions may also be extracted from the fluorescence data since available hyperfine splitting data allows for the Kr II 5d4D7/2 - 5p4P 5/2 transition line shape to be modeled. From the analysis, the fluorescence lineshape appears to be a reasonable estimate for the relatively broad ion velocity distributions. However due to an apparent overlap of the ion creation and acceleration regions within the discharge, the distributed velocity distributions increase ion temperature determination uncertainty significantly. Using the most probable ion velocity as a representative, or characteristic, measure of the ion acceleration, overall propellant energy deposition and effective electric fields may be calculated. With this diagnostic technique, it is possible to nonintrusively characterize the ion acceleration both within the discharge and in the plume.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA613654
Entities
People
- G. M. Azarnia
- M. R. Nakles
- W. A. Hargus Jr.
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory