The design, development, and testing of the top hat electric propulsion plume analyzer ͑TOPAZ͒ are presented for far-field electric propulsion plume diagnostics. The trend towards high-power thruster development will require plume diagnostic techniques capable of measuring high-energy particles as well as low-energy ions produced from charge-exchange collisions due to elevated facility background pressures. TOPAZ incorporates a "top hat" design with a geometrical analyzer constant of 100 resulting in a wide energy range and a high-energy resolution. SIMION, an ion trajectory analysis program, was used to predict characteristics of the analyzer. An ion beam accelerator system confirms the computational results. TOPAZ provides an energy resolution of 2.7%, field of view of 112°ϫ 26°͑azimuthal by elevation͒ with an angular resolution in each direction of 2°, and a demonstrated energy-per-charge acceptance range of 5-15 keV. An energy profile measurement of the NASA-173Mv1 Hall thruster demonstrates instrument operation in a Hall thruster plume.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.