Research Projects

Hollow cathode is one of the most important component of Hall thrusters which is an electron source for plasma discharge and beam neutralization. The life and performance of hollow cathode directly resembles thruster’s life and performance. The hollow cathode can be divided into orifice region, insert region and plume region. Plasma density and temperature inside the hollow cathode decides the discharge current that can extract from the cathode. The insert temperature of the cathode is provided by orifice heating, ion heating and electron heating in heater less operation mode. Hence models that quantitatively describe the trends of plasma parameters with varying operating conditions and to simulate discharge parameters (discharge voltage and cathode temperature) is needed.