Propulsion by Composite Beams of Negative and Positive Ions

Gilleo, M. A.; Kash, S.W.

doi:10.2514/8.5581

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…This prevention of stalling is usually referred to as beam neutralization [17,18], since the uncompensated space-charge is 'neutralized' by the injection of electrons to produce a quasi-neutral plasma exhaust. The concept of using negative ions instead of electrons for beam neutralization was also independently proposed more than 50 years ago [17,19], although at that time an efficient negative ion source proved difficult to develop, and so further work essentially stopped. Here a thruster with a mosaic-like structure of tightly packed inter-mixed positive and negative ion guns was envisioned, with the natural spreading of each beam utilized to ensure rapid mixing of the positive and negative ions, and hence compensation of any unbalanced space-charge (while producing thrust with both ionic species).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternate extraction and acceleration of positive and negative ions from a gridded plasma source

Lafleur

Rafalskyi

Aanesland

2014

Plasma Sources Sci. Technol.

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By applying a square-wave voltage with frequencies between 10 kHz to 1 MHz to a set of grids terminating an ion-ion plasma source, we experimentally demonstrate the alternate extraction and acceleration of high energy (100's of eV) positive and negative ion beams. In addition, the ratio of positive-to-negative ion beam current can be controlled by adjusting the applied square-wave duty cycle. Temporallyresolved floating potential measurements of a target show that the downstream potential can be controlled and sufficiently reduced at high applied frequencies (∼ 200 kHz), indicating that space-charge compensation can be achieved to prevent beam stalling.

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