Development of Electrodeless Plasma Thrusters With High-Density Helicon Plasma Sources

Abstract

Helicon plasma sources are very useful in many aspects and are applicable to many fields across science and technology, as they can supply high-density (~10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">13</sup> cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> ) plasmas with a broad range of external operating parameters. In this paper, developed, featured sources with various sizes are characterized along with discussions on their particle production efficiency. This paper aims to develop systems that can realize schemes with completely electrodeless plasma production and acceleration. This is expected to mitigate the existing problems of the finite lifetimes inherent in electric plasma propulsion tools. Experimental and theoretical approaches that implement such schemes are presented.