Discharge characteristics of Hall current accelerators

A simplified analysis of the discharge characteristics of Hall current accelerators has shown that at fixed discharge voltage and mass flow rate, the accelerator channel length can affect the efficiency of the ionization process and, as a result, the V-I characteristics of this type of device. In order to study this effect, an experimental Hall current accelerator was operated in a broad range of Xe gas mass flow rate and discharge voltage values with two channel lengths. It was observed experimentally that the channel length affects the dependence of the discharge current on the magnetic field strength and the mass flow rate. Measurements of the total ion current generated by the accelerator have demonstrated that at fixed channel length, the ionization efficiency is changed when the mass flow rate is varied. The obtained results have indicated that in designing a Hall current accelerator for specific operating conditions, in addition to the magnetic field distribution and the channel height, the channel length has to be optimized too.